Henry III King of England Plantagenet

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• Reference Number: 8076

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https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Plantagenet-167

BIOGRAPHY FROM GENEALOGICS.ORG:

Edward I 'Longshanks', king of England, was born on 17 June 1239, the son of Henry III, king of England, and Eleanor de Provence. As a boy Edward was once in the middle of a game of chess with one of his knights in a vaulted room when suddenly, for no apparent reason, he got up and walked away. Seconds later, a massive stone, which would have completely crushed anyone who happened to be underneath it, fell from the roof on to the very spot where he had been sitting.

With his mother's strength but without her frivolity, Edward I became a great statesman and an able soldier. He supported his weak father, King Henry III, during the civil wars inflicted upon England by the barons.

He was only fifteen when he went to Spain to be knighted by King Alfonso X of Castile and to marry that king's half-sister, Eleanor. This marriage, like that of his parents, was a happy one and produced fifteen children, of whom only six reached adulthood.

After peace was restored in England, Edward went on crusade in 1270, accompanied by Eleanor. In June 1272 a member of the Hashshashin, a secret society of assassins, who was employed by one of the emirs in negotiation with Edward, obtained a private interview with him under pretence of important secret business, then suddenly attacked him with a dagger, wounding him in the arm. Edward repelled him with a vigorous kick and, seizing a stool, knocked him down and snatched the dagger from him. In doing this, however, he wounded himself in the forehead. As the dagger was poisoned, Edward's wounds gave cause for great anxiety; he made his will, appointing executors and guardians for his children. However the skills of his surgeon saved his life.

In November 1272, when Edward and Eleanor were in Sicily on their way back, his father died. As they knew Edward I's mother to be a capable regent, they did not hurry and so did not arrive in England until the summer of 1274. Edward and Eleanor were then crowned together in Westminster Abbey on 19 August 1274.

In 1279 he proclaimed an edict to the effect that clipped money should no longer be circulated, nor should anyone be forced to accept it. He then designated a small number of places where money could be exchanged and within a short time no one would consider accepting it. Edward kept in touch with and encouraged the parliament. His continuous if unsuccessful attempts to rule Scotland earned him the name of 'Hammer of the Scots'. However, his sojourns into Wales were more successful, and after the death of the last two native princes, Llywellyn and David, Edward I created his son and heir Prince of Wales in February 1301.

In 1290 Eleanor died, and nine years later he married Margaret of France. This marriage was not unhappy and produced three more children. In 1296, while campaigning in Scotland, Edward removed the Stone of Scone on which the kings of Scots had always been crowned. He ordered a wooden chair to be made, which from then on contained the stone and was used for the coronation of English and British monarchs.

In 1298 Edward met William Wallace at the battle of Falkirk. On the night before the battle he slept on the ground, his shield for a pillow and his horse beside him. The horse stepped on his royal master as he lay asleep, and in the confusion of darkness the alarm spread that the king was wounded. Only slightly hurt, Edward went into battle in the morning, but his victory that day was not followed up.

Having survived the murderous attack in Palestine, there were still more miraculous escapes. In Paris lightning passed over his shoulders and slew two of his attendants; and when his horse leapt the town wall at Winchelsea he was uninjured. At the siege of Stirling a bolt from a crossbow struck his saddle as he rode unarmed, and a stone from a mangonel brought his horse down. Even illness had seemed to pass him by, but while on a military campaign he became ill with dysentery, and he died aged sixty-eight on 7 July 1307, at Burgh on the Sands near Carlisle in Scotland. In his last words he was still the warrior: 'Carry my bones before you on your march. For the rebels will not be able to endure the sight of me, alive or dead'.

Family/Spouse: Eleanor of England Provence. Eleanor was born about 1217 in Aix-en-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France; died on 24 Jun 1291 in Amesbury Priory, Wiltshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Edward I King of England Plantagenet was born on 17 Jun 1239 in Westminster, Middlesex, England; died on 7 Jul 1307 in Burgh by Sands, Cumberland, England.

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• Reference Number: 8079

Notes:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Plantagenet-143

BIOGRAPHY FROM GENEALOGICS.ORG:

John was born in 1167, the youngest son of Henry II, king of England, and Eleanor de Poitou, duchesse d'Aquitaine. John's mother was well over forty when John was born. He was her favourite, and inherited many of her characteristics. He grew up enjoying the good things of life: food, women and fashion. His parents indulged him; however, when at 18 he was sent to Ireland to complete its conquest, he was recalled when he aggravated the situation by making fun of the beards and clothes of the Irish chieftains.

His father denied him any lands and nicknamed him John Lackland; but when John's brother Richard became king he granted John the county of Mortain in Normandy. Richard I also found him a wife, Isabella of Gloucester. However the archbishop of Canterbury declared the marriage void as John and Isabella were second cousins. The Pope reversed this decision, but that did not improve the marriage and they soon lived apart, the marriage being annulled in 1200.

When Richard I went on crusade, being aware of John's character he appointed William de Longchamp as regent. However, as soon as Richard was gone, John found support not only from the people of England but also from his illegitimate half-brother Geoffrey, archbishop of York. Marching on London, he won the city by allowing the people to elect their mayor. Realising that he could not withstand his sovereign's brother, Longchamp fled disguised as a woman. He was ready to sail from Dover when an amorous sailor discovered who he was.

Before Richard I died he declared John to be his heir, by-passing Arthur of Brittany whose deceased father Geoffrey was John's elder brother. On 25 April 1199 John was invested as duke of Normandy. In 1200 he divorced his unwanted wife as he had become enamoured of the 12-year-old Isabella of Angoulême. Her parents, keen to see their daughter become queen, encouraged the match and they were married by the archbishop of Bordeaux.

As king he had a great concern and interest in the administration of his territories. Ralph of Coggeshall recorded that he ruled 'energetically enough'. He travelled widely in England, often dealing with mundane financial and legal matters. He was munificent and liberal to outsiders but a plunderer of his own people, trusting strangers rather than his subjects. He was eventually deserted by his own men, and in the end he was little mourned.

John produced eight illegitimate children. According to William of Newburgh he lusted after the wife of Eustace de Vesci, who contrived to smuggle a prostitute into the king's bed in her place. Next day when John coarsely told him how good his wife had been in bed, de Vesci confessed, then fled.

In 1203 John was responsible for the murder of his nephew and rival, Arthur. King Philippe of France, overlord for both Normandy and Brittany, was enraged by this action; forfeiting Normandy he attacked and conquered Rouen.

In 1205 John quarrelled with Pope Innocent III as he did not want to accept Stephen Langton as archbishop of Canterbury. As a result John was excommunicated in 1208. This lasted until 1213 when he had to accept England as a fief from the pope.

Campaigns in 1214 in France were disastrous. While he was in France his enemies in England joined forces under the banner of Stephen Langton, and forced John to accept the Magna Carta, which was sealed by John on 15 June 1215 at Runnymede near Windsor. Infuriated, John gained the support of the pope and gathered an army to fight his barons who were supported by the French king. Landing in England, King Louis marched on London. The barons promised the crown to the French king and a civil war began. During John's travels through England, one of his baggage-trains was swept away while crossing a river and he lost all his valuables including his crown. He became so depressed that he fell seriously ill. His illness was aggravated by his gluttony, and he was taken by litter to Newark Castle where he died, aged nearly forty-nine, on 18 October 1216.

John married Isabella de Lusignan Angoulême. Isabella was born about 1188 in Angoulême, Charente, Poitou-Charentes, France; died on 31 May 1246 in Fontevrault, Maine-et-Loire, Pays de la Loire, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• Reference Number: 8083

Notes:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Angoul%C3%AAme-40

BIOGRAPHY FROM GENEALOGICS.ORG:
Isabella d'Angoulême was born about 1188, daughter of Adhémar, Comte d'Angoulême, and Alix/Alide de Courtenay. Isabella was only twelve and engaged to Hugues 'le Brun' de Lusignan when King John of England became infatuated with her. Wanting her to be queen of England, her parents had the engagement annulled and allowed her to marry King John.

Seven years later she gave birth to their first child, the future King Henry III, soon to be followed by two more children. However John was an unfaithful husband and Isabella's flirtations also caused disharmony between them. In 1212 John had Isabella locked up at Gloucester, but a year later they became reconciled and two more children were born.

When John died in 1216 Isabella was at Gloucester with her children, and she immediately proclaimed their eldest son to be King Henry III. For safety against the French invaders she sent her younger son Richard to Ireland. In July 1217 she returned to France where she met her old fiancé, Hugues X 'le Brun' de Lusignan, who was by now engaged to Isabella's daughter Joan. However, as Joan was only ten years old and Hugues needed an heir soon, he married Isabella instead and they became the parents of five sons and at least three daughters.

Henry III had not been consulted about his mother's remarriage, and even though he was only thirteen he deprived his mother of her dowry. It took a year before they were reconciled.

In 1242 Hugues and Isabella were accused of plotting against the life of King Louis IX of France. Isabella attended the court but remained seated on her horse, and when she realised the hearing would go against her she rode off to take refuge in the abbey of Fontevraud. Although Hugues de Lusignan was able to placate the French king, Isabella remained at Fontevraud for the rest of her life, died and was bu

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• Reference Number: 7996

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https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Plantagenet-1627

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

King of England
Reign 19 December 1154 - 6 July 1189
Coronation 19 December 1154
Predecessor Stephen
Successor Richard I
Junior king Henry the Young King
Born 5 March 1133
Le Mans, Maine, Kingdom of France
Died 6 July 1189 (aged 56)
Chinon Castle, Chinon, Indre-et-Loire, Kingdom of France
Burial Fontevraud Abbey, Anjou, France
Spouse Eleanor of Aquitaine (m. 1152)
Issue
Geoffrey, Archbishop of York
William IX, Count of Poitiers
Henry the Young King
Matilda, Duchess of Saxony
Richard I, King of England
Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany
Eleanor, Queen of Castile
Joan, Queen of Sicily
John, King of England
William, Earl of Salisbury
House Plantagenet/Angevin[nb 1]
Father Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou
Mother Empress Matilda
Henry II (5 March 1133 - 6 July 1189), also known as Henry Curtmantle (French: Court-manteau), Henry FitzEmpress or Henry Plantagenet, ruled as King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou, Maine, and Nantes; at various times, he also partially controlled Scotland, Wales and the Duchy of Brittany. Before he was 40 he controlled England, large parts of Wales, the eastern half of Ireland and the western half of France-an area that would later come to be called the Angevin Empire.

Henry was the son of Geoffrey of Anjou and Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England. He became actively involved by the age of 14 in his mother's efforts to claim the throne of England, then occupied by Stephen of Blois, and was made Duke of Normandy at 17. He inherited Anjou in 1151 and shortly afterwards became the Duke of Aquitaine by marrying Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose marriage to Louis VII of France had recently been annulled. Stephen agreed to a peace treaty after Henry's military expedition to England in 1153, and Henry inherited the kingdom on Stephen's death a year later. Henry was an energetic and sometimes ruthless ruler, driven by a desire to restore the lands and privileges of his grandfather Henry I. During the early years of his reign the younger Henry restored the royal administration in England, re-established hegemony over Wales and gained full control over his lands in Anjou, Maine and Touraine. Henry's desire to reform the relationship with the Church led to conflict with his former friend Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This controversy lasted for much of the 1160s and resulted in Becket's murder in 1170. Henry soon came into conflict with Louis VII and the two rulers fought what has been termed a "cold war" over several decades. Henry expanded his empire, often at Louis' expense, taking Brittany and pushing east into central France and south into Toulouse; despite numerous peace conferences and treaties, no lasting agreement was reached.

Henry and Eleanor had eight children-three daughters and five sons. Three of his sons would be king, though Henry the Young King was named his father's co-ruler rather than a stand-alone king. As the sons grew up, tensions over the future inheritance of the empire began to emerge, encouraged by Louis and his son King Philip II. In 1173 Henry's heir apparent, "Young Henry", rebelled in protest; he was joined by his brothers Richard (later a king) and Geoffrey and by their mother, Eleanor. France, Scotland, Brittany, Flanders, and Boulogne allied themselves with the rebels. The Great Revolt was only defeated by Henry's vigorous military action and talented local commanders, many of them "new men" appointed for their loyalty and administrative skills. Young Henry and Geoffrey revolted again in 1183, resulting in Young Henry's death. The Norman invasion of Ireland provided lands for his youngest son John (later a king), but Henry struggled to find ways to satisfy all his sons' desires for land and immediate power. By 1189, Young Henry and Geoffrey were dead, and Philip successfully played on Richard's fears that Henry II would make John king, leading to a final rebellion. Decisively defeated by Philip and Richard and suffering from a bleeding ulcer, Henry retreated to Chinon castle in Anjou. He died soon afterwards and was succeeded by Richard.

Henry's empire quickly collapsed during the reign of his son John, but many of the changes Henry introduced during his long rule had long-term consequences. Henry's legal changes are generally considered to have laid the basis for the English Common Law, while his intervention in Brittany, Wales, and Scotland shaped the development of their societies and governmental systems. Historical interpretations of Henry's reign have changed considerably over time. In the 18th century, scholars argued that Henry was a driving force in the creation of a genuinely English monarchy and, ultimately, a unified Britain. During the Victorian expansion of the British Empire, historians were keenly interested in the formation of Henry's own empire, but they also expressed concern over his private life and treatment of Becket. Late-20th-century historians have combined British and French historical accounts of Henry, challenging earlier Anglocentric interpretations of his reign.

Henry was born in France at Le Mans on 5 March 1133, the eldest child of the Empress Matilda and her second husband, Geoffrey the Fair, Count of Anjou.[2] The French county of Anjou was formed in the 10th century and the Angevin rulers attempted for several centuries to extend their influence and power across France through careful marriages and political alliances.[3] In theory, the county answered to the French king, but royal power over Anjou weakened during the 11th century and the county became largely autonomous.[4]

Henry's mother was the eldest daughter of Henry I, King of England and Duke of Normandy. She was born into a powerful ruling class of Normans, who traditionally owned extensive estates in both England and Normandy, and her first husband had been the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V.[5] After her father's death in 1135, Matilda hoped to claim the English throne, but instead her cousin Stephen of Blois was crowned king and recognised as the Duke of Normandy, resulting in civil war between their rival supporters.[6] Geoffrey took advantage of the confusion to attack the Duchy of Normandy but played no direct role in the English conflict, leaving this to Matilda and her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester.[7] The war, termed the Anarchy by Victorian historians, dragged on and degenerated into stalemate.[8]

Henry probably spent some of his earliest years in his mother's household, and accompanied Matilda to Normandy in the late 1130s.[9] Henry's later childhood, probably from the age of seven, was spent in Anjou, where he was educated by Peter of Saintes, a noted grammarian of the day.[10] In late 1142, Geoffrey decided to send the nine-year-old to Bristol, the centre of Angevin opposition to Stephen in the south-west of England, accompanied by Robert of Gloucester.[11] Although having children educated in relatives' households was common among noblemen of the period, sending Henry to England also had political benefits, as Geoffrey was coming under criticism for refusing to join the war in England.[11] For about a year, Henry lived alongside Roger of Worcester, one of Robert's sons, and was instructed by a magister, Master Matthew; Robert's household was known for its education and learning.[12] The canons of St Augustine's in Bristol also helped in Henry's education, and he remembered them with affection in later years.[13] Henry returned to Anjou in either 1143 or 1144, resuming his education under William of Conches, another famous academic.[14]

Henry returned to England in 1147, when he was fourteen.[15] Taking his immediate household and a few mercenaries, he left Normandy and landed in England, striking into Wiltshire.[15] Despite initially causing considerable panic, the expedition had little success, and Henry found himself unable to pay his forces and therefore unable to return to Normandy.[15] Neither his mother nor his uncle were prepared to support him, implying that they had not approved of the expedition in the first place.[16] Surprisingly, Henry instead turned to King Stephen, who paid the outstanding wages and thereby allowed Henry to retire gracefully. Stephen's reasons for doing so are unclear. One potential explanation is his general courtesy to a member of his extended family; another is that he was starting to consider how to end the war peacefully, and saw this as a way of building a relationship with Henry.[17] Henry intervened once again in 1149, commencing what is often termed the Henrician phase of the civil war.[18] This time, Henry planned to form a northern alliance with King David I of Scotland, Henry's great-uncle, and Ranulf of Chester, a powerful regional leader who controlled most of the north-west of England.[19] Under this alliance, Henry and Ranulf agreed to attack York, probably with help from the Scots.[20] The planned attack disintegrated after Stephen marched rapidly north to York, and Henry returned to Normandy.[21][nb 2]

Appearance and personality
Henry was said by chroniclers to be good-looking, red-haired, freckled, with a large head; he had a short, stocky body and was bow-legged from riding.[22] Often he was scruffily dressed.[23] Not as reserved as his mother Matilda, nor as charming as his father Geoffrey, Henry was famous for his energy and drive.[24] He was also infamous for his piercing stare, bullying, bursts of temper and, on occasion, his sullen refusal to speak at all.[25] Some of these outbursts may have been theatrical and for effect.[26][nb 3] Henry was said to have understood a wide range of languages, including English, but spoke only Latin and French.[27][nb 4] In his youth Henry enjoyed warfare, hunting and other adventurous pursuits; as the years went by he put increasing energy into judicial and administrative affairs and became more cautious, but throughout his life he was energetic and frequently impulsive.[29]

Henry had a passionate desire to rebuild his control of the territories that his grandfather, Henry I, had once governed.[30] He may well have been influenced by his mother in this regard, as Matilda also had a strong sense of ancestral rights and privileges.[31] Henry took back territories, regained estates, and re-established influence over the smaller lords that had once provided what historian John Gillingham describes as a "protective ring" around his core territories.[32] He was probably the first king of England to use a heraldic design: a signet ring with either a leopard or a lion engraved on it. The design would be altered in later generations to form the royal seal of England.[33]

Early reign (1150-1162)
Northern France around the time of Henry's birth
By the late 1140s the active phase of the civil war was over, barring the occasional outbreak of fighting.[34] Many of the barons were making individual peace agreements with each other to secure their war gains and it increasingly appeared as though the English Church was considering promoting a peace treaty.[35] On Louis VII's return from the Second Crusade in 1149, he became concerned about the growth of Geoffrey's power and the potential threat to his own possessions, especially if Henry could acquire the English crown.[36] In 1150, Geoffrey made Henry the Duke of Normandy and Louis responded by putting forward King Stephen's son Eustace as the rightful heir to the duchy and launching a military campaign to remove Henry from the province.[37][nb 5] Henry's father advised him to come to terms with Louis and peace was made between them in August 1151 after mediation by Bernard of Clairvaux.[39] Under the settlement Henry did homage to Louis for Normandy, accepting Louis as his feudal lord, and gave him the disputed lands of the Norman Vexin; in return, Louis recognised him as duke.[39]

Geoffrey died in September 1151, and Henry postponed his plans to return to England, as he first needed to ensure that his succession, particularly in Anjou, was secure.[39] At around this time Henry was also probably secretly planning his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, then still the wife of Louis.[39] Eleanor was the Duchess of Aquitaine, a land in the south of France, and was considered beautiful, lively and controversial, but had not borne Louis any sons.[40] Louis had the marriage annulled and Henry married Eleanor eight weeks later on 18 May.[39][nb 6] The marriage instantly reignited Henry's tensions with Louis: it was considered an insult, it ran counter to feudal practice[clarification needed] and it threatened the inheritance of Louis and Eleanor's two daughters, Marie and Alix, who might otherwise have had claims to Aquitaine on Eleanor's death. With his new lands, Henry now possessed a much larger proportion of France than Louis.[42] Louis organised a coalition against Henry, including Stephen, Eustace, Henry the Count of Champagne, and Robert the Count of Perche.[43] Louis's alliance was joined by Henry's younger brother, Geoffrey, who rose in revolt, claiming that Henry had dispossessed him of his inheritance.[44] Geoffrey of Anjou's plans for the inheritance of his lands had been ambiguous, making the veracity of his son Geoffrey's claims hard to assess.[45] Contemporaneous accounts suggest he left the main castles in Poitou to Geoffrey, implying that he may have intended Henry to retain Normandy and Anjou but not Poitou.[46][nb 7]

Fighting immediately broke out again along the Normandy borders, where Henry of Champagne and Robert captured the town of Neufmarché-sur-Epte.[48] Louis's forces moved to attack Aquitaine.[49] Stephen responded by placing Wallingford Castle, a key fortress loyal to Henry along the Thames Valley, under siege, possibly in an attempt to force a successful end to the English conflict while Henry was still fighting for his territories in France.[50] Henry moved quickly in response, avoiding open battle with Louis in Aquitaine and stabilising the Norman border, pillaging the Vexin and then striking south into Anjou against Geoffrey, capturing one of his main castles.[51] Louis fell ill and withdrew from the campaign, and Geoffrey was forced to come to terms with Henry.[49]

In response to Stephen's siege, Henry returned to England again at the start of 1153, braving winter storms.[52] Bringing only a small army of mercenaries, probably paid for with borrowed money, Henry was supported in the north and east of England by the forces of Ranulf of Chester and Hugh Bigod, and had hopes of a military victory.[53] A delegation of senior English clergy met with Henry and his advisers at Stockbridge shortly before Easter in April.[54] Details of their discussions are unclear, but it appears that the churchmen emphasised that while they supported Stephen as king, they sought a negotiated peace; Henry reaffirmed that he would avoid the English cathedrals and would not expect the bishops to attend his court.[55]

To draw Stephen's forces away from Wallingford, Henry besieged Stephen's castle at Malmesbury, and the King responded by marching west with an army to relieve it.[56] Henry successfully evaded Stephen's larger army along the River Avon, preventing Stephen from forcing a decisive battle.[57] In the face of the increasingly wintry weather, the two men agreed to a temporary truce, leaving Henry to travel north through the Midlands, where the powerful Robert de Beaumont, Earl of Leicester, announced his support for the cause.[57] Henry was then free to turn his forces south against the besiegers at Wallingford.[58] Despite only modest military successes, he and his allies now controlled the south-west, the Midlands and much of the north of England.[59] Meanwhile, Henry was attempting to act the part of a legitimate king, witnessing marriages and settlements and holding court in a regal fashion.[60]

Over the next summer, Stephen massed troops to renew the siege of Wallingford Castle in a final attempt to take the stronghold.[61] The fall of Wallingford appeared imminent and Henry marched south to relieve the siege, arriving with a small army and placing Stephen's besieging forces under siege themselves.[62] Upon news of this, Stephen returned with a large army, and the two sides confronted each other across the River Thames at Wallingford in July.[62] By this point in the war, the barons on both sides were eager to avoid an open battle,[63] so members of the clergy brokered a truce, to the annoyance of both Henry and Stephen.[63] Henry and Stephen took the opportunity to speak together privately about a potential end to the war; conveniently for Henry, Stephen's son Eustace fell ill and died shortly afterwards.[64] This removed the most obvious other claimant to the throne, as while Stephen had another son, William, he was only a second son and appeared unenthusiastic about making a plausible claim on the throne.[65] Fighting continued after Wallingford, but in a rather half-hearted fashion, while the English Church attempted to broker a permanent peace between the two sides.[66]

In November the two leaders ratified the terms of a permanent peace.[67] Stephen announced the Treaty of Winchester in Winchester Cathedral: he recognised Henry as his adopted son and successor, in return for Henry doing homage to him; Stephen promised to listen to Henry's advice, but retained all his royal powers; Stephen's remaining son, William, would do homage to Henry and renounce his claim to the throne, in exchange for promises of the security of his lands; key royal castles would be held on Henry's behalf by guarantors whilst Stephen would have access to Henry's castles; and the numerous foreign mercenaries would be demobilised and sent home.[68] Henry and Stephen sealed the treaty with a kiss of peace in the cathedral.[69] The peace remained precarious, and Stephen's second son William remained a possible future rival to Henry.[70] Rumours of a plot to kill Henry were circulating and, possibly as a consequence, Henry decided to return to Normandy for a period.[70][nb 8] Stephen fell ill with a stomach disorder and died on 25 October 1154, allowing Henry to inherit the throne rather sooner than had been expected.[72]

On landing in England on 8 December 1154, Henry quickly took oaths of loyalty from some of the barons and was then crowned alongside Eleanor at Westminster Abbey on 19 December.[73] The royal court was gathered in April 1155, where the barons swore fealty to the King and his sons.[73] Several potential rivals still existed, including Stephen's son William and Henry's brothers Geoffrey and William, but they all died in the next few years, leaving Henry's position remarkably secure.[74] Nonetheless, Henry inherited a difficult situation in England, as the kingdom had suffered extensively during the civil war.[nb 9] In many parts of the country the fighting had caused serious devastation, although some other areas remained largely unaffected.[76] Numerous "adulterine", or unauthorised, castles had been built as bases for local lords.[77] The royal forest law had collapsed in large parts of the country.[78] The king's income had declined seriously and royal control over the mints remained limited.[79]

Henry presented himself as the legitimate heir to Henry I and commenced rebuilding the kingdom in his image.[80] Although Stephen had tried to continue Henry I's method of government during his reign, the younger Henry's new government characterised those nineteen years as a chaotic and troubled period, with all these problems resulting from Stephen's usurpation of the throne.[81] Henry was also careful to show that, unlike his mother the Empress, he would listen to the advice and counsel of others.[82] Various measures were immediately carried out although, since Henry spent six and a half years out of the first eight years of his reign in France, much work had to be done at a distance.[83] The process of demolishing the unauthorised castles from the war continued.[84][nb 10] Efforts were made to restore the system of royal justice and the royal finances. Henry also invested heavily in the construction and renovation of prestigious new royal buildings.[85]

The King of Scotland and local Welsh rulers had taken advantage of the long civil war in England to seize disputed lands; Henry set about reversing this trend.[86] In 1157 pressure from Henry resulted in the young King Malcolm of Scotland returning the lands in the north of England he had taken during the war; Henry promptly began to refortify the northern frontier.[87] Restoring Anglo-Norman supremacy in Wales proved harder, and Henry had to fight two campaigns in north and south Wales in 1157 and 1158 before the Welsh princes Owain Gwynedd and Rhys ap Gruffydd submitted to his rule, agreeing to the pre-civil war borders.[88]

Henry's claims over lands in France (in buff, orange and yellow) at their peak[89]
Henry had a problematic relationship with Louis VII of France throughout the 1150s. The two men had already clashed over Henry's succession to Normandy and the remarriage of Eleanor, and the relationship was not repaired. Louis invariably attempted to take the moral high ground in respect to Henry, capitalising on his reputation as a crusader and circulating rumours about his rival's behaviour and character.[90] Henry had greater resources than Louis, particularly after taking England, and Louis was far less dynamic in resisting Angevin power than he had been earlier in his reign.[91] The disputes between the two drew in other powers across the region, including Thierry, the Count of Flanders, who signed a military alliance with Henry, albeit with a clause that prevented the count from being forced to fight against Louis, his feudal lord.[92] Further south, Theobald V, the Count of Blois, an enemy of Louis, became another early ally of Henry.[93] The resulting military tensions and the frequent face-to-face meetings to attempt to resolve them has led historian Jean Dunbabin to liken the situation to the period of the Cold War in Europe in the 20th century.[94]

On his return to the continent from England, Henry sought to secure his French lands and quash any potential rebellion.[95] As a result, in 1154 Henry and Louis agreed a peace treaty, under which Henry bought back the Vernon and the Neuf-Marché from Louis.[30] The treaty appeared shaky, and tensions remained-in particular, Henry had not given homage to Louis for his French possessions.[96][nb 11] In an attempt to improve relations, Henry met with Louis at Paris and Mont-Saint-Michel in 1158, agreeing to betroth Henry's eldest living son, the Young Henry, to Louis's daughter Margaret.[98] The marriage deal would have involved Louis granting the disputed territory of the Vexin to Margaret on her marriage to the Young Henry: while this would ultimately give Henry the lands that he claimed, it also cunningly implied that the Vexin was Louis's to give away in the first place, in itself a political concession.[99] For a short while, a permanent peace between Henry and Louis looked plausible.[98]

Meanwhile, Henry turned his attention to the Duchy of Brittany, which neighboured his lands and was traditionally largely independent from the rest of France, with its own language and culture.[100] The Breton dukes held little power across most of the duchy, which was mostly controlled by local lords.[101] In 1148, Duke Conan III died and civil war broke out.[102] Henry claimed to be the overlord of Brittany, on the basis that the duchy had owed loyalty to Henry I, and saw controlling the duchy both as a way of securing his other French territories and as a potential inheritance for one of his sons.[103][nb 12] Initially Henry's strategy was to rule indirectly through proxies, and accordingly Henry supported Conan IV's claims over most of the duchy, partly because Conan had strong English ties and could be easily influenced.[105] Conan's uncle, Hoël, continued to control the county of Nantes in the east until he was deposed in 1156 by Henry's brother, Geoffrey, possibly with Henry's support.[106] When Geoffrey died in 1158, Conan attempted to reclaim Nantes but was opposed by Henry who annexed it for himself.[107] Louis took no action to intervene as Henry steadily increased his power in Brittany.[108]

Henry's eldest son, the Young Henry
Henry hoped to take a similar approach to regaining control of Toulouse in southern France.[108] Toulouse, while technically part of the Duchy of Aquitaine, had become increasingly independent and was now ruled by Count Raymond V, who had only a weak claim to the lands.[109] Encouraged by Eleanor, Henry first allied himself with Raymond's enemy Raymond Berenguer of Barcelona and then in 1159 threatened to invade himself to depose Raymond.[109] Louis married his sister Constance to Raymond in an attempt to secure his southern frontiers; nonetheless, when Henry and Louis discussed the matter of Toulouse, Henry left believing that he had the French king's support for military intervention.[110] Henry invaded Toulouse, only to find Louis visiting Raymond in the city.[111] Henry was not prepared to directly attack Louis, who was still his feudal lord, and withdrew, settling himself with ravaging the surrounding county, seizing castles and taking the province of Quercy.[111] The episode proved to be a long-running point of dispute between the two kings and the chronicler William of Newburgh called the ensuing conflict with Toulouse a "forty years' war".[112]

In the aftermath of the Toulouse episode, Louis made an attempt to repair relations with Henry through an 1160 peace treaty: this promised Henry the lands and the rights of his grandfather, Henry I; it reaffirmed the betrothal of Young Henry and Margaret and the Vexin deal; and it involved Young Henry giving homage to Louis, a way of reinforcing the young boy's position as heir and Louis's position as king.[113] Almost immediately after the peace conference, Louis shifted his position considerably. Louis's wife Constance died and Louis married Adèle, the sister of the Counts of Blois and Champagne.[114] Louis also betrothed daughters by Eleanor to Theobald of Blois's sons, Theobald and Henry.[115] This represented an aggressive containment strategy towards Henry rather than the agreed rapprochement, and caused Theobald to abandon his alliance with Henry.[115] Henry reacted angrily; the King had custody of both Young Henry and Margaret, and in November he bullied several papal legates into marrying them-despite the children being only five and three years old respectively-and promptly seized the Vexin.[116][nb 13] Now it was Louis's turn to be furious, as the move clearly broke the spirit of the 1160 treaty.[120]

Military tensions between the two leaders immediately increased. Theobald mobilised his forces along the border with Touraine; Henry responded by attacking Chaumont in Blois in a surprise attack; he successfully took Theobald's castle in a notable siege.[115] At the start of 1161 war seemed likely to spread across the region, until a fresh peace was negotiated at Fréteval that autumn, followed by a second peace treaty in 1162, overseen by Pope Alexander III.[121] Despite this temporary halt in hostilities, Henry's seizure of the Vexin proved to be a second long-running dispute between him and the kings of France.[122]

Early 14th-century representation of Henry and Thomas Becket
Henry controlled more of France than any ruler since the Carolingians; these lands, combined with his possessions in England, Wales, Scotland and much of Ireland, produced a vast domain often referred to by historians as the Angevin Empire.[123] The empire lacked a coherent structure or central control; instead, it consisted of a loose, flexible network of family connections and lands.[124] Different local customs applied within each of Henry's different territories, although common principles underpinned some of these local variations.[125][nb 14] Henry travelled constantly across the empire, producing what the historian John Jolliffe describes as a "government of the roads and roadsides".[127][nb 15] His travels coincided with regional governmental reforms and other local administrative business, although messengers connected him to his possession wherever he went.[129] In his absence the lands were ruled by seneschals and justiciars, and beneath them local officials in each of the regions carried on with the business of government.[130] Nonetheless, many of the functions of government centred on Henry himself and he was often surrounded by petitioners requesting decisions or favours.[131][nb 16]

From time to time, Henry's royal court became a magnum concilium, a great council; these were sometimes used to take major decisions but the term was loosely applied whenever many barons and bishops attended the king.[133] A great council was supposed to advise the king and give assent to royal decisions, although it is unclear how much freedom they actually enjoyed to oppose Henry's intentions.[134] Henry also appears to have consulted with his court when making legislation; the extent to which he then took their views into account is unclear.[135] As a powerful ruler, Henry was able to provide either valuable patronage or impose devastating harm on his subjects.[136] Using his powers of patronage, Henry was very effective at finding and keeping competent officials, including within the Church, in the 12th century a key part of royal administration.[137] Indeed, royal patronage within the Church provided an effective route to advancement under Henry and most of his preferred clerics eventually became bishops and archbishops.[138][nb 17] Henry could also show his ira et malevolentia-"anger and ill-will"-a term that described his ability to punish or financially destroy particular barons or clergy.[140]

In England, Henry initially relied on his father's former advisers whom he brought with him from Normandy, and on some of Henry I's remaining officials, reinforced with some of Stephen's senior nobility who made their peace with Henry in 1153.[141] During his reign Henry, like his grandfather, increasingly promoted "new men", minor nobles without independent wealth and lands, to positions of authority in England.[142] By the 1180s this new class of royal administrators was predominant in England, supported by various illegitimate members of Henry's family.[143] In Normandy, the links between the two halves of the Anglo-Norman nobility had weakened during the first half of the 12th century, and continued to do so under Henry.[144] Henry drew his close advisers from the ranks of the Norman bishops and, as in England, recruited many "new men" as Norman administrators: few of the larger landowners in Normandy benefited from the king's patronage.[145] Henry frequently intervened with the Norman nobility through arranged marriages or the treatment of inheritances, either using his authority as duke or his influence as king of England over their lands there: Henry's rule was a harsh one. Across the rest of France, local administration was less developed: Anjou was governed through a combination of officials called prévôts and seneschals based along the Loire and in western Touraine, but Henry had few officials elsewhere in the region.[146] In Aquitaine, ducal authority remained very limited, despite increasing significantly during Henry's reign, largely due to Richard's efforts in the late 1170s.[147]

Court and family
An illuminated diagram showing Henry II and the heads of his children; coloured lines connect the two to show the lineal descent
13th-century depiction of Henry and his legitimate children: (l to r) William, Young Henry, Richard, Matilda, Geoffrey, Eleanor, Joan and John
Henry's wealth allowed him to maintain what was probably the largest curia regis, or royal court, in Europe.[148] His court attracted huge attention from contemporary chroniclers, and typically comprised several major nobles and bishops, along with knights, domestic servants, prostitutes, clerks, horses and hunting dogs.[149][nb 18] Within the court were his officials, ministeriales, his friends, amici, and the familiares regis, the king's informal inner circle of confidants and trusted servants.[151] Henry's familiares were particularly important to the operation of his household and government, driving government initiatives and filling the gaps between the official structures and the king.[152]

Henry tried to maintain a sophisticated household that combined hunting and drinking with cosmopolitan literary discussion and courtly values.[153][nb 19] Nonetheless, Henry's passion was for hunting, for which the court became famous.[155] Henry had several preferred royal hunting lodges and apartments across his lands, and invested heavily in his royal castles, both for their practical utility as fortresses, and as symbols of royal power and prestige.[156] The court was relatively formal in its style and language, possibly because Henry was attempting to compensate for his own sudden rise to power and relatively humble origins as the son of a count.[157] He opposed the holding of tournaments, probably because of the security risk that such gatherings of armed knights posed in peacetime.[158]

Chinon Castle, extensively used by Henry
The Angevin Empire and court was, as historian John Gillingham describes it, "a family firm".[159] His mother, Matilda, played an important role in his early life and exercised influence for many years later.[160] Henry's relationship with his wife Eleanor was complex: Henry trusted Eleanor to manage England for several years after 1154, and was later content for her to govern Aquitaine; indeed, Eleanor was believed to have influence over Henry during much of their marriage.[161] Ultimately, their relationship disintegrated and chroniclers and historians have speculated on what ultimately caused Eleanor to abandon Henry to support her older sons in the Great Revolt of 1173-74.[162] Probable explanations include Henry's persistent interference in Aquitaine, his recognition of Raymond of Toulouse in 1173, or his harsh temper.[163] Henry had several long-term mistresses, including Annabel de Balliol and Rosamund Clifford.[164][nb 20]

Henry had eight legitimate children by Eleanor, five sons-William, the Young Henry, Richard, Geoffrey and John, and three daughters, Matilda, Eleanor and Joan.[nb 21] Henry also had several illegitimate children; amongst the most prominent of these were Geoffrey (later Archbishop of York) and William (later Earl of Salisbury).[166] Henry was expected to provide for the future of his legitimate children, either through granting lands to his sons or marrying his daughters well.[167] Henry's family was divided by rivalries and violent hostilities, more so than many other royal families of the day, in particular the relatively cohesive French Capetians.[168] Various suggestions have been put forward to explain Henry's family's bitter disputes, from their inherited family genetics to the failure of Henry and Eleanor's parenting.[169] Other theories focus on the personalities of Henry and his children.[170] Historians such as Matthew Strickland have argued that Henry made sensible attempts to manage the tensions within his family, and that had the King died younger, the succession might have proven much smoother.[171]

Henry's reign saw significant legal changes, particularly in England and Normandy.[172][nb 22] By the middle of the 12th century, England had many different ecclesiastical and civil law courts, with overlapping jurisdictions resulting from the interaction of diverse legal traditions. Henry greatly expanded the role of royal justice in England, producing a more coherent legal system, summarised at the end of his reign in the treatise of Glanvill, an early legal handbook.[174] Despite these reforms it is uncertain if Henry had a grand vision for his new legal system and the reforms seem to have proceeded in a steady, pragmatic fashion.[175] Indeed, in most cases he was probably not personally responsible for creating the new processes, but he was greatly interested in the law, seeing the delivery of justice as one of the key tasks for a king and carefully appointing good administrators to conduct the reforms.[176][nb 23]

In the aftermath of the disorders of Stephen's reign in England there were many legal cases concerning land to be resolved: many religious houses had lost land during the conflict, while in other cases owners and heirs had been dispossessed of their property by local barons, which in some cases had since been sold or given to new owners.[178] Henry relied on traditional, local courts-such as the shire courts, hundred courts and in particular seignorial courts-to deal with most of these cases, hearing only a few personally.[179] This process was far from perfect and in many cases claimants were unable to pursue their cases effectively.[180] While interested in the law, during the first years of his reign Henry was preoccupied with other political issues and even finding the King for a hearing could mean travelling across the Channel and locating his peripatetic court.[181] Nonetheless, Henry was prepared to take action to improve the existing procedures, intervening in cases which he felt had been mishandled, and creating legislation to improve both ecclesiastical and civil court processes.[182] Meanwhile, in neighbouring Normandy, Henry delivered justice through the courts run by his officials across the duchy and occasionally these cases made their way to the King himself.[183] He also operated an exchequer court at Caen that heard cases relating to royal revenues and maintained king's justices who travelled across the duchy.[184] Between 1159 and 1163, Henry spent time in Normandy conducting reforms of royal and church courts and some measures later introduced in England are recorded as existing in Normandy as early as 1159.[185]

In 1163 Henry returned to England, intent on reforming the role of the royal courts.[186] He cracked down on crime, seizing the belongings of thieves and fugitives, and travelling justices were dispatched to the north and the Midlands.[187] After 1166, Henry's exchequer court in Westminster, which had previously only heard cases connected with royal revenues, began to take wider civil cases on behalf of the king.[188] The reforms continued and Henry created the General Eyre, probably in 1176, which involved dispatching a group of royal justices to visit all the counties in England over a given period of time, with authority to cover both civil and criminal cases.[189] Local juries were used occasionally in previous reigns, but Henry made much wider use of them.[190] Juries were introduced in petty assizes from around 1176, where they were used to establish the answers to particular pre-established questions, and in grand assizes from 1179, where they were used to determine the guilt of a defendant.[190] Other methods of trial continued, including trial by combat and trial by ordeal.[191] After the Assize of Clarendon in 1166, royal justice was extended into new areas through the use of new forms of assizes, in particular novel disseisin, mort d'ancestor and dower unde nichil habet, which dealt with the wrongful dispossession of land, inheritance rights and the rights of widows respectively.[192] In making these reforms Henry both challenged the traditional rights of barons in dispensing justice and reinforced key feudal principles, but over time they greatly increased royal power in England.[193][nb 24]

Henry's relationship with the Church varied considerably across his lands and over time: as with other aspects of his rule, there was no attempt to form a common ecclesiastical policy.[194] Insofar as Henry had a policy, it was to generally resist papal influence, increasing his own local authority.[195] The 12th century saw a reforming movement within the Church, advocating greater autonomy from royal authority for the clergy and more influence for the papacy.[196] This trend had already caused tensions in England, for example when King Stephen forced Theobald of Bec, the Archbishop of Canterbury, into exile in 1152.[197] There were also long-running concerns over the legal treatment of members of the clergy.[198]

By contrast with the tensions in England, in Normandy Henry had occasional disagreements with the Church but generally enjoyed very good relations with the Norman bishops.[199] In Brittany, Henry had the support of the local church hierarchy and rarely intervened in clerical matters, except occasionally to cause difficulties for his rival Louis of France.[200] Further south, the power of the dukes of Aquitaine over the local church was much less than in the north, and Henry's efforts to extend his influence over local appointments created tensions.[201] During the disputed papal election of 1159, Henry, like Louis, supported Alexander III over his rival Victor IV.[117]

Henry was not an especially pious king by medieval standards.[202] In England, he provided steady patronage to the monastic houses, but established few new monasteries and was relatively conservative in determining which he did support, favouring those with established links to his family, such as Reading Abbey.[203] In this regard Henry's religious tastes appear to have been influenced by his mother, and before his ascension several religious charters were issued in their joint names.[31] Henry also founded religious hospitals in England and France.[204] After the death of Becket, Henry built and endowed various monasteries in France, primarily to improve his popular image.[205] Since travel by sea during the period was dangerous, he would also take full confession before setting sail and use auguries to determine the best time to travel.[206] Henry's movements may also have been planned to take advantage of saints' days and other fortuitous occasions.[207]

Henry restored many of the old financial institutions of his grandfather Henry I and undertook further, long-lasting reforms of the way that the English currency was managed; one result was a long-term increase in the supply of money within the economy, leading to a growth both in trade and inflation.[208] Medieval rulers such as Henry enjoyed various sources of income during the 12th century. Some of their income came from their private estates, called demesne; other income came from imposing legal fines and arbitrary amercements, and from taxes, which at this time were raised only intermittently.[209] Kings could also raise funds by borrowing; Henry did this far more than earlier English rulers, initially through moneylenders in Rouen, turning later in his reign to Jewish and Flemish lenders.[210] Ready cash was increasingly important to rulers during the 12th century to enable the use of mercenary forces and the construction of stone castles, both vital to successful military campaigns.[211]

Henry inherited a difficult situation in England in 1154. Henry I had established a system of royal finances that depended upon three key institutions: a central royal treasury in London, supported by treasuries in key castles; the exchequer that accounted for payments to the treasuries; and a team of royal officials called "the chamber" that followed the king's travels, spending money as necessary and collecting revenues along the way.[212] The long civil war had caused considerable disruption to this system and some figures suggest that royal income fell by 46% between 1129-30 and 1155-56.[213] A new coin, called the Awbridge silver penny, was issued in 1153 in an attempt to stabilise the English currency after the war.[214] Less is known about how financial affairs were managed in Henry's continental possessions, but a very similar system operated in Normandy, and a comparable system probably operated in both Anjou and Aquitaine.[215]

On taking power Henry gave a high priority to the restoration of royal finances in England, reviving Henry I's financial processes and attempting to improve the quality of the royal accounting.[216] Revenue from the demesne formed the bulk of Henry's income in England, although taxes were used heavily in the first 11 years of his reign.[217] Aided by the capable Richard FitzNeal, Henry reformed the currency in 1158, putting his name on English coins for the first time and heavily reducing the number of moneyers licensed to produce coins.[218][nb 25] These measures were successful in improving his income, but on his return to England in the 1160s Henry took further steps.[222] New taxes were introduced and the existing accounts re-audited, and the reforms of the legal system brought in new streams of money from fines and amercements.[223] A wholesale reform of the coinage occurred in 1180, with royal officials taking direct control of the mints and passing the profits directly to the treasury.[224] A new penny, called the Short Cross, was introduced, and the number of mints reduced substantially to ten across the country.[225] Driven by the reforms, the royal revenues increased significantly; during the first part of the reign, Henry's average exchequer income was only around £18,000; after 1166, the average was around £22,000.[226] One economic effect of these changes was a substantial increase in the amount of money in circulation in England and, post-1180, a significant, long-term increase in both inflation and trade.[227]

Long-running tensions between Henry and Louis VII continued during the 1160s, the French king slowly becoming more vigorous in opposing Henry's increasing power in Europe.[108] In 1160 Louis strengthened his alliances in central France with the Count of Champagne and Odo II, the Duke of Burgundy. Three years later the new Count of Flanders, Philip, concerned about Henry's growing power, openly allied himself with the French king.[228] Louis's wife Adèle gave birth to a male heir, Philip II Augustus, in 1165, and Louis was more confident of his own position than for many years previously.[229] As a result, relations between Henry and Louis deteriorated again in the mid-1160s.[230]

Meanwhile, Henry had begun to alter his policy of indirect rule in Brittany and started to exert more direct control.[231] In 1164 Henry intervened to seize lands along the border of Brittany and Normandy, and in 1166 invaded Brittany to punish the local barons.[232] Henry then forced Conan to abdicate as duke and to give Brittany to his daughter Constance; Constance was handed over and betrothed to Henry's son Geoffrey.[232] This arrangement was quite unusual in terms of medieval law, as Conan might have had sons who could have legitimately inherited the duchy.[233][nb 26] Elsewhere in France, Henry attempted to seize the Auvergne, much to the anger of the French king.[234] Further south Henry continued to apply pressure on Raymond of Toulouse: the King campaigned there personally in 1161, sent the Archbishop of Bordeaux against Raymond in 1164 and encouraged Alfonso II of Aragon in his attacks.[235] In 1165 Raymond divorced Louis's sister and attempted to ally himself with Henry instead.[234]

These growing tensions between Henry and Louis finally spilled over into open war in 1167, triggered by a trivial argument over how money destined for the Crusader states of the Levant should be collected.[234] Louis allied himself with the Welsh, Scots and Bretons, and the French king attacked Normandy.[236] Henry responded by attacking Chaumont-sur-Epte, where Louis kept his main military arsenal, burning the town to the ground and forcing Louis to abandon his allies and make a private truce.[237] Henry was then free to move against the rebel barons in Brittany, where feelings about his seizure of the duchy were still running high.[238]

As the decade progressed, Henry increasingly wanted to resolve the question of the inheritance. He decided that he would divide up his empire after his death, with Young Henry receiving England and Normandy, Richard being given the Duchy of Aquitaine, and Geoffrey acquiring Brittany.[239] This would require the consent of Louis as king of France, and accordingly Henry and Louis held fresh peace talks in 1169 at Montmirail.[240] The talks were wide-ranging, culminating with Henry's sons giving homage to Louis for their future inheritances in France, and with Richard being betrothed to Louis's daughter Alys.[241]

If the agreements at Montmirail had been followed up, the acts of homage could potentially have confirmed Louis's position as king, while undermining the legitimacy of any rebellious barons within Henry's territories and the potential for an alliance between them and Louis.[242] In practice,Louis perceived himself to have gained a temporary advantage, and immediately after the conference he began to encourage tensions between Henry's sons.[243] Meanwhile, Henry's position in the south of France continued to improve, and by 1173 he had agreed to an alliance with Humbert, the Count of Savoy, which betrothed Henry's son John and Humbert's daughter Alicia.[235][nb 27] Henry's daughter Eleanor was married to Alfonso VIII of Castile in 1170, enlisting an additional ally in the south.[235] In February 1173, Raymond finally gave in and publicly gave homage for Toulouse to Henry and his heirs.[235]

One of the major international events surrounding Henry during the 1160s was the Becket controversy. When the Archbishop of Canterbury, Theobald of Bec, died in 1161 Henry saw an opportunity to reassert his rights over the church in England.[244] Henry appointed Thomas Becket, his English Chancellor, as archbishop in 1162, probably believing that Becket, in addition to being an old friend, would be politically weakened within the Church because of his former role as Chancellor, and would therefore have to rely on Henry's support.[245] Both Matilda and Eleanor appear to have had doubts about the appointment, but Henry continued regardless.[246] His plan did not have the desired result, as Becket promptly changed his lifestyle, abandoned his links to the King and portrayed himself as a staunch protector of church rights.[247]

Henry and Becket quickly disagreed over several issues, including Becket's attempts to regain control of lands belonging to the archbishopric and his views on Henry's taxation policies.[248] The main source of conflict concerned the treatment of clergy who committed secular crimes: Henry argued that the legal custom in England allowed the king to enforce justice over these clerics, while Becket maintained that only church courts could try the cases. The matter came to a head in January 1164, when Henry forced through agreement to the Constitutions of Clarendon; under tremendous pressure, Becket temporarily agreed but changed his position shortly afterwards.[249] The legal argument was complex at the time and remains contentious.[250][nb 28]

The argument between Henry and Becket became both increasingly personal and international in nature. Henry was stubborn and bore grudges, while Becket was vain, ambitious and overly political: neither man was willing to back down.[252] Both sought the support of Alexander III and other international leaders, arguing their positions in various forums across Europe.[253] The situation worsened in 1164 when Becket fled to France to seek sanctuary with Henry's enemy, Louis VII.[254] Henry harassed Becket's associates in England, and Becket excommunicated religious and secular officials who sided with the king.[255] The pope supported Becket's case in principle but needed Henry's support in dealing with Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, so he repeatedly sought a negotiated solution; the Norman church also intervened to try to assist Henry in finding a solution.[256]

By 1169, Henry had decided to crown his son Young Henry as king of England. This required the acquiescence of Becket as the Archbishop of Canterbury, traditionally the churchman with the right to conduct the ceremony. Furthermore, the whole Becket matter was an increasing international embarrassment to Henry. He began to take a more conciliatory tone with Becket but, when this failed, had Young Henry crowned anyway by the Archbishop of York. The pope authorized Becket to lay an interdict on England, forcing Henry back to negotiations; they finally came to terms in July 1170, and Becket returned to England in early December. Just when the dispute seemed resolved, Becket excommunicated another three supporters of Henry: the King was furious and infamously announced "What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and promoted in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born clerk!"[257]

In response, four knights made their way secretly to Canterbury, apparently with the intent of confronting and if necessary arresting Becket for breaking his agreement with Henry.[258] The Archbishop refused to be arrested by relatively low-born knights, so they hacked him to death on 29 December 1170.[259] This event, particularly in front of an altar, horrified Christian Europe. Although Becket had not been popular while he was alive, in death he was declared a martyr by the local monks.[260] Louis seized on the case, and, despite efforts by the Norman church to prevent the French church from taking action, a new interdict was announced on Henry's possessions.[261] Henry was focused on dealing with Ireland and took no action to arrest Becket's killers, arguing that he was unable to do so.[262] International pressure on Henry grew, and in May 1172 he negotiated a settlement with the papacy in which the King swore to go on crusade as well as effectively overturning the Constitutions of Clarendon.[263] In the coming years, although Henry never actually went on crusade, he exploited the growing "cult of Becket" for his own ends.[264]

In the mid-12th century Ireland was ruled by local kings, although their authority was more limited than their counterparts in the rest of western Europe.[265] Mainstream Europeans regarded the Irish as relatively barbarous and backward.[266] In the 1160s King Diarmait Mac Murchada was deposed as King of Leinster by the High King of Ireland, Tairrdelbach Ua Conchobair. Diarmait turned to Henry for assistance in 1167, and the English king agreed to allow Diarmait to recruit mercenaries within his empire.[267] Diarmait put together a force of Anglo-Norman and Flemish mercenaries drawn from the Welsh Marches, including Richard de Clare.[268] With his new supporters, he reclaimed Leinster but died shortly afterwards in 1171; de Clare then claimed Leinster for himself. The situation in Ireland was tense and the Anglo-Normans heavily outnumbered.[269]

Henry took this opportunity to intervene personally in Ireland. He took a large army into south Wales, forcing the rebels who had held the area since 1165 into submission before sailing from Pembroke and landing in Ireland in October 1171.[270] Some of the Irish lords appealed to Henry to protect them from the Anglo-Norman invaders, while de Clare offered to submit to Henry if he was allowed to retain his new possessions.[269] Henry's timing was influenced by several factors, including encouragement from Pope Alexander, who saw the opportunity to establish papal authority over the Irish church.[271] The critical factor though appears to have been Henry's concern that his nobles in the Welsh Marches would acquire independent territories of their own in Ireland, beyond the reach of his authority.[272] Henry's intervention was successful, and both the Irish and Anglo-Normans in the south and east of Ireland accepted his rule.[273]

Henry undertook a wave of castle-building during his visit in 1171 to protect his new territories-the Anglo-Normans had superior military technologies to the Irish, and castles gave them a significant advantage.[274] Henry hoped for a longer-term political solution, similar to his approach in Wales and Scotland, and in 1175 he agreed to the Treaty of Windsor, under which Rory O'Connor would be recognised as the high king of Ireland, giving homage to Henry and maintaining stability on the ground on his behalf.[275] This policy proved unsuccessful, as O'Connor was unable to exert sufficient influence and force in areas such as Munster: Henry instead intervened more directly, establishing a system of local fiefs of his own through a conference held in Oxford in 1177.[276]

Events in Normandy, summer 1173
In 1173 Henry faced the Great Revolt, an uprising by his eldest sons and rebellious barons, supported by France, Scotland and Flanders. Several grievances underpinned the revolt. Young Henry was unhappy that, despite the title of king, in practice he made no real decisions and was kept chronically short of money by Henry.[277] Young Henry had also been very attached to Thomas Becket, his former tutor, and may have held his father responsible for Becket's death.[245] Geoffrey faced similar difficulties; Duke Conan of Brittany had died in 1171, but Geoffrey and Constance were still unmarried, leaving Geoffrey in limbo without his own lands.[278] Richard was encouraged to join the revolt as well by Eleanor, whose relationship with Henry, as previously described, had disintegrated.[279] Meanwhile, local barons unhappy with Henry's rule saw opportunities to recover traditional powers and influence by allying themselves with his sons.[280]

The final straw was Henry's decision to give his youngest son John three major castles belonging to Young Henry, who first protested and then fled to Paris, followed by his brothers Richard and Geoffrey; Eleanor attempted to join them but was captured by Henry's forces in November.[281] Louis supported Young Henry and war became imminent.[282] Young Henry wrote to the pope, complaining about his father's behaviour, and began to acquire allies, including King William of Scotland and the Counts of Boulogne, Flanders and Blois-all of whom were promised lands if Young Henry won.[283] Major baronial revolts broke out in England, Brittany, Maine, Poitou and Angoulême.[284] In Normandy some of the border barons rose up and, although the majority of the duchy remained openly loyal, there appears to have been a wider undercurrent of discontent.[285][nb 29] Only Anjou proved relatively secure.[284] Despite the size and scope of the crisis, Henry had several advantages, including his control of many powerful royal castles in strategic areas, control of most of the English ports throughout the war, and his continuing popularity within the towns across his empire.[287]

In May 1173 Louis and the Young King probed the defences of the Vexin, the main route to the Norman capital, Rouen; armies invaded from Flanders and Blois, attempting a pincer movement, while rebels from Brittany invaded from the west.[288] Henry secretly travelled back to England to order an offensive on the rebels, and on his return counter-attacked Louis's army, massacring many of them and pushing them back across the border.[289] An army was dispatched to drive back the Brittany rebels, whom Henry then pursued, surprised and captured.[290] Henry offered to negotiate with his sons, but these discussions at Gisors soon broke down.[290] Meanwhile, the fighting in England proved evenly balanced until a royal army defeated a superior force of rebel and Flemish reinforcements in September in the battle of Fornham near Fornham in East Anglia.[291] Henry took advantage of this respite to crush the rebel strongholds in Touraine, securing the strategically important route through his empire.[292] In January 1174 the forces of Young Henry and Louis attacked again, threatening to push through into central Normandy.[292] The attack failed and the fighting paused while the winter weather set in.[292]

In early 1174, Henry's enemies appeared to have tried to lure him back into England, allowing them to attack Normandy in his absence.[292] As part of this plan, William of Scotland attacked the south of England, supported by the northern English rebels; additional Scottish forces were sent into the Midlands, where the rebel barons were making good progress.[293] Henry refused the bait and instead focused on crushing opposition in south-west France, and William's campaign began to falter as the Scots failed to take the key northern royal castles, in part due to the efforts of Henry's illegitimate son, Geoffrey.[294] In an effort to reinvigorate the plan, Philip, the Count of Flanders, announced his intention to invade England and sent an advance force into East Anglia.[295] The prospective Flemish invasion forced Henry to return to England in early July.[296] Louis and Philip could now push overland into eastern Normandy and reached Rouen.[296] Henry travelled to Becket's tomb in Canterbury, where he announced that the rebellion was a divine punishment on him, and took appropriate penance; this made a major difference in restoring his royal authority at a critical moment in the conflict.[297] Word then reached Henry that King William had been defeated and captured by local forces at Alnwick, crushing the rebel cause in the north.[296] The remaining English rebel strongholds collapsed and in August Henry returned to Normandy.[298] Louis had not yet been able to take Rouen, and Henry's forces fell upon the French army just before the final French assault on the city began; pushed back into France, Louis requested peace talks, bringing an end to the conflict.[298]

Final years (1175-1189)
In the aftermath of the Great Revolt, Henry held negotiations at Montlouis, offering a lenient peace on the basis of the pre-war status quo.[299] Henry and Young Henry swore not to take revenge on each other's followers; Young Henry agreed to the transfer of the disputed castles to John, but in exchange the elder Henry agreed to give the younger Henry two castles in Normandy and 15,000 Angevin pounds; Richard and Geoffrey were granted half the revenues from Aquitaine and Brittany respectively.[300][nb 30] Eleanor was kept under effective house arrest until the 1180s.[302] The rebel barons were kept imprisoned for a short time and in some cases fined, then restored to their lands.[303] The rebel castles in England and Aquitaine were destroyed.[304] Henry was less generous to William of Scotland, who was not released until he had agreed to the Treaty of Falaise in December 1174, under which he publicly gave homage to Henry and surrendered five key Scottish castles to Henry's men.[305] Philip of Flanders declared his neutrality towards Henry, in return for which the King agreed to provide him with regular financial support.[92]

Henry now appeared to his contemporaries to be stronger than ever, and he was courted as an ally by many European leaders and asked to arbitrate over international disputes in Spain and Germany.[306] He was nonetheless busy resolving some of the weaknesses that he believed had exacerbated the revolt. Henry set about extending royal justice in England to reassert his authority and spent time in Normandy shoring up support amongst the barons.[307] The King also made use of the growing Becket cult to increase his own prestige, using the power of the saint to explain his victory in 1174, especially his success in capturing William.[308]

The 1174 peace did not deal with the long-running tensions between Henry and Louis, and these resurfaced during the late 1170s.[309] The two kings now began to compete for control of Berry, a prosperous region of value to both kings.[309] Henry had some rights to western Berry, but in 1176 announced an extraordinary claim that he had agreed in 1169 to give Richard's fiancée Alys the whole province as part of the marriage settlement.[310] If Louis accepted this, it would have implied that the Berry was Henry's to give away in the first place, and would have given Henry the right to occupy it on Richard's behalf.[311] To put additional pressure on Louis, Henry mobilised his armies for war.[309] The papacy intervened and, probably as Henry had planned, the two kings were encouraged to sign a non-aggression treaty in September 1177, under which they promised to undertake a joint crusade.[311] The ownership of the Auvergne and parts of the Berry were put to an arbitration panel, which reported in favour of Henry; Henry followed up this success by purchasing La Marche from the local count.[312] This expansion of Henry's empire once again threatened French security and promptly put the new peace at risk.[313]

In the late 1170s Henry focused on trying to create a stable system of government, increasingly ruling through his family, but tensions over the succession arrangements were never far away, ultimately leading to a fresh revolt.[314] Having quelled the left-over rebels from the Great Revolt, Richard was recognised by Henry as the Duke of Aquitaine in 1179.[315] In 1181 Geoffrey finally married Constance of Brittany and became Duke of Brittany; by now most of Brittany accepted Angevin rule, and Geoffrey was able to deal with the remaining disturbances on his own.[316] John had spent the Great Revolt travelling alongside his father and most observers now began to regard the prince as Henry's favourite child.[317] Henry began to grant John more lands, mostly at various nobles' expense, and i

Henry married Eleanor of Aquitaine Aquitaine. Eleanor was born about 1124 in Aquitaine, France; died on 31 Mar 1204 in Poitiers, Vienne, Poitou-Charentes, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 8085

Notes:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Aquitaine-84

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 7997

Notes:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Anjou-7

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Geoffrey Plantagenet
Duke of the Normans
Count of Anjou, Maine and Mortain
Count of Anjou
Reign 1129 - 7 September 1151
Predecessor Fulk the Younger
Successor Henry Curtmantle
Born 24 August 1113
Died 7 September 1151 (aged 38)
Château-du-Loir, France
Burial Le Mans Cathedral, Le Mans
Spouse Matilda of England (m. 1128)
Issue
Detail Henry II, King of England
Geoffrey, Count of Nantes
William, Viscount of Dieppe
House Plantagenet (founder)
Father Fulk, King of Jerusalem
Mother Ermengarde, Countess of Maine
Geoffrey V (24 August 1113 - 7 September 1151)-called the Handsome or the Fair (French: le Bel) and Plantagenet-was the Count of Anjou, Touraine, and Maine by inheritance from 1129 and then Duke of Normandy by conquest from 1144. By his marriage to the Empress Matilda, daughter and heiress of Henry I of England, Geoffrey had a son, Henry Curtmantle, who succeeded to the English throne as King Henry II (1154-1189) and was the first of the Plantagenet dynasty to rule England; the name "Plantagenet" was taken from Geoffrey's epithet. His ancestral domain of Anjou gave rise to the name Angevin for three kings of England (Henry II his son and heir, and Henry's sons Richard and John), and what became known as the Angevin Empire in the 12th century.

Early life
Geoffrey was the elder son of Fulk V of Anjou and Ermengarde of Maine. Geoffrey received his nickname from the yellow sprig of broom blossom (genêt is the French name for the planta genista, or broom shrub) he wore in his hat.[1]:9[2]:1[3] Geoffrey was described by the chronicler John of Marmoutier as handsome, red haired, jovial, and a great warrior.[4] King Henry I of England, having heard good reports on Geoffrey's talents and prowess, sent his royal legates to Anjou to negotiate a marriage between Geoffrey and his own daughter, Empress Matilda. Consent was obtained from both parties, and on 10 June 1128 the fifteen-year-old Geoffrey was knighted in Rouen by King Henry in preparation for the wedding.

Marriage
Geoffrey and Matilda's marriage took place in 1128. The marriage was meant to seal a peace between England/Normandy and Anjou. She was eleven years older than Geoffrey, and very proud of her status as Empress (as opposed to being a mere countess). Their marriage was a stormy one with frequent long separations but she bore him three sons and survived him.[1]:14-18

Count of Anjou
The year after the marriage Geoffrey's father left for Jerusalem (where he was to become king), leaving Geoffrey behind as count of Anjou.

When King Henry I died in 1135, Matilda at once entered Normandy to claim her inheritance. The border districts submitted to her, but England chose her cousin Stephen of Blois for its king, and Normandy soon followed suit. The following year, Geoffrey gave Ambrieres, Gorron, and Chatilon-sur-Colmont to Juhel de Mayenne, on condition that he help obtain the inheritance of Geoffrey's wife.[5]

In 1139 Matilda landed in England with 140 knights, where she was besieged at Arundel Castle by King Stephen. In the "Anarchy" which ensued, Stephen was captured at Lincoln in February 1141, and imprisoned at Bristol.[6] A legatine council of the English church held at Winchester in April 1141 declared Stephen deposed and proclaimed Matilda "Lady of the English".[7]

During 1142 and 1143, Geoffrey secured all of Normandy west and south of the Seine, and, on 14 January 1144, he crossed the Seine and entered Rouen. He assumed the title of Duke of Normandy in the summer of 1144. In 1144, he founded an Augustine priory at Château-l'Hermitage in Anjou.[8] Geoffrey held the duchy until 1149, when he and Matilda conjointly ceded it to their son, Henry, which cession was formally ratified by King Louis VII of France the following year.[9]

Geoffrey also put down three baronial rebellions in Anjou, in 1129, 1135, and 1145-1151.[10] He was often at odds with his younger brother, Elias, whom he had imprisoned until Elias died in 1151. The threat of rebellion slowed his progress in Normandy, and is one reason he could not intervene in England. Geoffrey died later the same year, aged just 38, and Henry took his father’s place as Head of the Plantagenet House. In 1153, the Treaty of Wallingford stipulated that Stephen should remain King of England for life and that Henry, the son of Geoffrey and Matilda should succeed him, beginning the Plantagenet era in England.[11]

Death
North West France 1150
Geoffrey died suddenly on 7 September 1151. According to John of Marmoutier, Geoffrey was returning from a royal council when he was stricken with fever. He arrived at Château-du-Loir, collapsed on a couch, made bequests of gifts and charities, and died. His wife and sons outlived him. He was buried at St. Julien's Cathedral in Le Mans France, and Henry succeeded him as Duke of Normandy.[11]

Children
Geoffrey and Matilda's children were:
Henry II of England (1133-1189), succeeded his father as head of Angevin Dynasty, had 8 children with Eleanor of Aquitaine, who became rulers of the Angevin Dynasty after their father.
Geoffrey, Count of Nantes (1 June 1134 Rouen - 26 July 1158 Nantes) died unmarried and was buried in Nantes
William, Viscount of Dieppe (1136-1164) died unmarried
Geoffrey also had illegitimate children by an unknown mistress (or mistresses): Hamelin who married Isabel de Warenne, 4th Countess of Surrey; Emme, who married Dafydd Ab Owain Gwynedd, Prince of North Wales; and Mary, who became a nun and Abbess of Shaftesbury and who may be the poet Marie de France. Adelaide of Angers is sometimes sourced as being the mother of Hamelin.[11]

Geoffrey married Empress, Matilda of England Normandie on 22 May 1128 in Le Mans Cathedral, Anjou, France. Matilda (daughter of Henry I King of England Normandie and MatildaEadgith of Scotland Dunkeld) was born on 7 Feb 1102 in Sutton Courtenay, Berkshire, England; died on 10 Sep 1167 in Rouen, Normandie, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Name: Empress Maude
• Reference Number: 7998

Notes:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Normandie-40

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Holy Roman Empress;
German Queen;
Queen of Italy
Tenure 7 January 1114 - 23 May 1125
Lady of the English (disputed)
Reign 7 April 1141 - 1148[1][2]
Predecessor Stephen (as king)
Successor Stephen (as king)
Born c. 7 February 1102
Possibly Winchester or Sutton Courtenay, England
Died 10 September 1167 (aged 65)
Rouen, France
Burial Rouen Cathedral, France
Spouse Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor
(m. 1114; died 1125)
Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou
(m. 1128; died 1151)
Issue Henry II of England
Geoffrey, Count of Nantes
William FitzEmpress
House Normandy
Father Henry I of England
Mother Matilda of Scotland
Empress Matilda (c. 7 February 1102 - 10 September 1167), also known as the Empress Maude,[nb 1] was one of the claimants to the English throne during the civil war known as the Anarchy. The daughter of King Henry I of England, she moved to Germany as a child when she married the future Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. She travelled with her husband into Italy in 1116, was controversially crowned in St. Peter's Basilica, and acted as the imperial regent in Italy. Matilda and Henry V had no children, and when he died in 1125, the imperial crown was claimed by Lothair II.

Meanwhile, Matilda's younger brother, William Adelin, died in the White Ship disaster of 1120, leaving Matilda's father and England facing a potential succession crisis. On Emperor Henry V's death, Matilda was recalled to Normandy by her father, who arranged for her to marry Geoffrey of Anjou to form an alliance to protect his southern borders. Henry I had no further legitimate children and nominated Matilda as his heir, making his court swear an oath of loyalty to her and her successors, but the decision was not popular in the Anglo-Norman court. Henry died in 1135, but Matilda and Geoffrey faced opposition from Anglo-Norman barons. The throne was instead taken by Matilda's cousin Stephen of Blois, who enjoyed the backing of the English Church. Stephen took steps to solidify his new regime but faced threats both from neighbouring powers and from opponents within his kingdom.

In 1139, Matilda crossed to England to take the kingdom by force, supported by her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester, and her uncle, King David I of Scotland, while Geoffrey focused on conquering Normandy. Matilda's forces captured Stephen at the Battle of Lincoln in 1141, but the Empress's attempt to be crowned at Westminster collapsed in the face of bitter opposition from the London crowds. As a result of this retreat, Matilda was never formally declared Queen of England, and was instead titled the Lady of the English. Robert was captured following the Rout of Winchester in 1141, and Matilda agreed to exchange him for Stephen. Matilda became trapped in Oxford Castle by Stephen's forces that winter, and was forced to escape across the frozen River Isis at night to avoid capture. The war degenerated into a stalemate, with Matilda controlling much of the south-west of England, and Stephen the south-east and the Midlands. Large parts of the rest of the country were in the hands of local, independent barons.

Matilda returned to Normandy, now in the hands of her husband, in 1148, leaving her eldest son to continue the campaign in England; he eventually succeeded to the throne as Henry II in 1154, forming the Angevin Empire. She settled her court near Rouen and for the rest of her life concerned herself with the administration of Normandy, acting on her son's behalf when necessary. Particularly in the early years of her son's reign, she provided political advice and attempted to mediate during the Becket controversy. She worked extensively with the Church, founding Cistercian monasteries, and was known for her piety. She was buried under the high altar at Bec Abbey after her death in 1167.

Childhood
Matilda was born to Henry I, King of England and Duke of Normandy, and his first wife, Matilda of Scotland, possibly around 7 February 1102 at Sutton Courtenay, in Berkshire.[3][nb 2] Henry was the youngest son of William the Conqueror, who had invaded England in 1066, creating an empire stretching into Wales. The invasion had created an Anglo-Norman elite, many with estates spread across both sides of the English Channel.[5] These barons typically had close links to the kingdom of France, which was then a loose collection of counties and smaller polities, under only the minimal control of the king.[6] Her mother Matilda was the daughter of King Malcolm III of Scotland, a member of the West Saxon royal family, and a descendant of Alfred the Great.[7] For Henry, marrying Matilda of Scotland had given his reign increased legitimacy, and for her it had been an opportunity for high status and power in England.[8]

Matilda had a younger, legitimate brother, William Adelin, and her father's relationships with numerous mistresses resulted in around 22 illegitimate siblings.[nb 3] Little is known about Matilda's earliest life, but she probably stayed with her mother, was taught to read, and was educated in religious morals.[9][nb 4] Among the nobles at her mother's court were her uncle David, later the King of Scotland, and aspiring nobles such as her half-brother Robert of Gloucester, her cousin Stephen of Blois and Brian Fitz Count.[11] In 1108 Henry left Matilda and her brother in the care of Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, while he travelled to Normandy; Anselm was a favoured cleric of Matilda's mother.[12] There is no detailed description of Matilda's appearance; contemporaries described Matilda as being very beautiful, but this may have simply reflected the conventional practice among the chroniclers.[13]

Holy Roman Empire
In late 1108 or early 1109, Henry V, then the King of the Romans, sent envoys to Normandy proposing that Matilda marry him, and wrote separately to her mother on the same matter.[14] The match was attractive to the English king: his daughter would be marrying into one of the most prestigious dynasties in Europe, reaffirming his own, slightly questionable, status as the youngest son of a new royal house, and gaining him an ally in dealing with France.[15] In return, Henry V would receive a dowry of 10,000 marks, which he needed to fund an expedition to Rome for his coronation as the Holy Roman Emperor.[16] The final details of the deal were negotiated at Westminster in June 1109 and, as a result of her changing status, Matilda attended a royal council for the first time that October.[16] She left England in February 1110 to make her way to Germany.[17]

The couple met at Liège before travelling to Utrecht where, on 10 April, they became officially betrothed.[18] On 25 July Matilda was crowned Queen of the Romans in a ceremony at Mainz.[19] There was a considerable age gap between the couple, as Matilda was only eight years old while Henry was 24.[20] After the betrothal she was placed into the custody of Bruno, the Archbishop of Trier, who was tasked with educating her in German culture, manners and government.[21][22][nb 5] In January 1114 Matilda was ready to be married to Henry, and their wedding was held at the city of Worms amid extravagant celebrations.[23] Matilda now entered public life in Germany, complete with her own household.[24]

Political conflict broke out across the Empire shortly after the marriage, triggered when Henry arrested his Chancellor Adalbert and various other German princes.[25] Rebellions followed, accompanied by opposition from within the Church, which played an important part in administering the Empire, and this led to the formal excommunication of the Emperor by Pope Paschal II.[26] Henry and Matilda marched over the Alps into Italy in early 1116, intent on settling matters permanently with the Pope.[26] Matilda was now playing a full part in the imperial government, sponsoring royal grants, dealing with petitioners and taking part in ceremonial occasions.[27] The rest of the year was spent establishing control of northern Italy, and in early 1117 the pair advanced on Rome itself.[28]

Paschal fled when Henry and Matilda arrived, and in his absence the papal envoy Maurice Bourdin, later the Antipope Gregory VIII, crowned the pair at St. Peter's Basilica, probably that Easter and certainly by Pentecost.[29] Matilda used these ceremonies to claim the title of the Empress of the Holy Roman Empire. The Empire was governed by elected monarchs who, like Henry V, had been selected by the major nobles to become the King of the Romans. These kings typically hoped to be subsequently crowned by the Pope as the Holy Roman Emperor, but this could not be guaranteed. Henry V had coerced the Pope into crowning him in 1111, but Matilda's own status was less clear.[30] As a result of her marriage she was clearly the legitimate Queen of the Romans, a title that she used on her seal and charters, but it was uncertain if she had a legitimate claim to the title of empress.[30]

Both Bourdin's status and the ceremonies themselves were deeply ambiguous. Strictly speaking, the ceremonies were not imperial coronations but instead were formal "crown-wearing" occasions, among the few times in the year when the rulers would wear their crowns in court.[31] Bourdin had also been excommunicated by the time he conducted the second ceremony, and he was later to be deposed and imprisoned for life by the Pope.[31] Nonetheless, Matilda maintained that she had been officially crowned as the empress in Rome.[31] The titles of emperor and empress were not always consistently used in this period, and in any case her use of the title became widely accepted.[32] Matilda chose not to dispute Anglo-Norman chroniclers who later incorrectly recorded that the Pope himself had crowned her in Rome.[33]

Death of Henry
In 1118, Henry returned north over the Alps into Germany to suppress fresh rebellions, leaving Matilda as his regent to govern Italy.[34][nb 6] There are few records of her rule over the next two years, but she probably gained considerable practical experience of government.[36] In 1119, she returned north to meet Henry in Lotharingia.[37] Her husband was occupied in finding a compromise with the Pope, who had excommunicated him.[37] In 1122, Henry and probably Matilda were at the Council of Worms.[38] The council settled the long-running dispute with the Church when Henry gave up his rights to invest bishops with their episcopal regalia.[38] Matilda attempted to visit her father in England that year, but the journey was blocked by Charles I, Count of Flanders, whose territory she would have needed to pass through.[39] Historian Marjorie Chibnall argues Matilda had intended to discuss the inheritance of the English crown on this journey.[40]

Matilda and Henry remained childless, but neither party was considered to be infertile and contemporary chroniclers blamed their situation on the Emperor and his sins against the Church.[41][nb 7] In early 1122, the couple travelled down the Rhine together as Henry continued to suppress the ongoing political unrest, but by now he was suffering from cancer.[42] His condition worsened and he died on 23 May 1125 in Utrecht, leaving Matilda in the protection of their nephew Frederick, the heir to his estates.[43] Before his death, he left the imperial insignia in the control of Matilda, but it is unclear what instructions he gave her about the future of the Empire, which faced another leadership election.[44] Archbishop Adalbert subsequently convinced Matilda that she should give him the insignia, and the Archbishop led the electoral process which appointed Lothair of Supplinburg, a former enemy of Henry, as the new King of the Romans.[45]

Now aged 23, Matilda had only limited options as to how she might spend the rest of her life.[45] Being childless, she could not exercise a role as an imperial regent, which left her with the choice of either becoming a nun or remarrying.[45] Some offers of marriage started to arrive from German princes, but she chose to return to Normandy.[46] She does not appear to have expected to return to Germany, as she gave up her estates within the Empire and departed with her personal collection of jewels, her own imperial regalia, two of Henry's crowns, and the valuable relic of the Hand of St James the Apostle.[47]

Succession crisis
In 1120, the English political landscape had changed dramatically after the White Ship disaster. Around three hundred passengers - including Matilda's brother William Adelin and many other senior nobles - embarked one night on the White Ship to travel from Barfleur in Normandy across to England.[48] The vessel foundered just outside the harbour, possibly as a result of overcrowding or excessive drinking by the ship's master and crew, and all but two of the passengers died. William Adelin was among the casualties.[49]

With William dead, the succession to the English throne was thrown into doubt. Rules of succession were uncertain in western Europe at the time; in some parts of France, male primogeniture was becoming more popular, in which the eldest son would inherit a title.[50] It was also traditional for the King of France to crown his successor while he was still alive, making the intended line of succession relatively clear. This was not the case in England, where the best a noble could do was to identify what Professor Eleanor Searle has termed a pool of legitimate heirs, leaving them to challenge and dispute the inheritance after his death.[51] The problem was further complicated by the sequence of unstable Anglo-Norman successions over the previous sixty years. William the Conqueror had invaded England, his sons William Rufus and Robert Curthose had fought a war between them to establish their inheritance, and Henry had only acquired control of Normandy by force. There had been no peaceful, uncontested successions.[52]

Initially, Henry put his hopes in fathering another son. William and Matilda's mother-Matilda of Scotland-had died in 1118, and so Henry took a new wife, Adeliza of Louvain. Henry and Adeliza did not conceive any children, and the future of the dynasty appeared at risk.[53] Henry may have begun to look among his nephews for a possible heir. He may have considered his sister Adela's son Stephen of Blois as a possible option and, perhaps in preparation for this, he arranged a beneficial marriage for Stephen to Matilda's wealthy maternal cousin and namesake the Countess of Boulogne.[54] Theobald of Blois, his close ally, possibly also felt that he was in favour with Henry.[55] William Clito, the only son of Robert Curthose, was King Louis VI of France's preferred choice, but William was in open rebellion against Henry and was therefore unsuitable.[56] Henry might have also considered his own illegitimate son, Robert of Gloucester, as a possible candidate, but English tradition and custom would have looked unfavourably on this.[57] Henry's plans shifted when Empress Matilda's husband, Emperor Henry, died in 1125.[58]

Return to Normandy
Contemporary depiction of Geoffrey of Anjou, Matilda's second husband
Matilda returned to Normandy in 1125 and spent about a year at the royal court, where her father Henry was still hoping that his second marriage would generate a male heir.[59] In the event that this failed to happen, Matilda was now Henry's preferred choice, and he declared that she was to be his rightful successor if he should die without a male heir.[60] The Anglo-Norman barons were gathered together at Westminster on Christmas 1126, where they swore in January to recognise Matilda and any future legitimate heir she might have.[61][nb 8]

Henry began to formally look for a new husband for Matilda in early 1127 and received various offers from princes within the Empire.[63] His preference was to use Matilda's marriage to secure the southern borders of Normandy by marrying her to Geoffrey of Anjou, the eldest son of Fulk, the Count of Anjou.[64] Henry's control of Normandy had faced numerous challenges since he had conquered it in 1106, and the latest threat came from his nephew William Clito, the new Count of Flanders, who enjoyed the support of the French King.[65] It was essential to Henry that he did not also face a threat from the south as well as the east of Normandy.[66] William Adelin had married Fulk's daughter Matilda, which would have cemented an alliance between Henry and Anjou, but the White Ship disaster put an end to this.[67] Henry and Fulk argued over the fate of the marriage dowry, and this had encouraged Fulk to turn to support William Clito instead.[68] Henry's solution was now to negotiate the marriage of Matilda to Geoffrey, recreating the former alliance.[65]

Matilda appears to have been unimpressed by this plan.[69] She felt that marrying the son of a count diminished her imperial status and was probably also unhappy about marrying someone so much younger than she was; Matilda was 25 and Geoffrey was only 13.[69] Hildebert, the Archbishop of Tours, eventually intervened to persuade her to go along with the engagement.[69] Matilda finally agreed, and she travelled to Rouen in May 1127 with Robert of Gloucester and Brian Fitz Count where she was formally betrothed to Geoffrey.[70] Over the course of the next year, Fulk decided to depart for Jerusalem, where he hoped to become king, leaving his possessions to Geoffrey.[71] Henry knighted his future son-in-law, and Matilda and Geoffrey were married a week later on 17 June 1128 in Le Mans by the bishops of Le Mans and Séez.[71] Fulk finally left Anjou for Jerusalem in 1129, declaring Geoffrey the Count of Anjou and Maine.[72]

Disputes
The marriage proved difficult, as the couple did not particularly like each other.[73] There was a further dispute over Matilda's dowry; she was granted various castles in Normandy by Henry, but it was not specified when the couple would actually take possession of them.[74] It is also unknown whether Henry intended Geoffrey to have any future claim on England or Normandy, and he was probably keeping Geoffrey's status deliberately uncertain.[74] Soon after the marriage, Matilda left Geoffrey and returned to Normandy.[73] Henry appears to have blamed Geoffrey for the separation, but the couple were finally reconciled in 1131.[75] Henry summoned Matilda from Normandy, and she arrived in England that August.[76] It was decided that Matilda would return to Geoffrey at a meeting of the King's great council in September.[76] The council also gave another collective oath of allegiance to recognise her as Henry's heir.[76][nb 9]

Matilda gave birth to her first son in March 1133 at Le Mans, the future Henry II.[78] Henry was delighted by the news and came to see her at Rouen.[79] At Pentecost 1134, son Geoffrey was born in Rouen, but the childbirth was extremely difficult and Matilda appeared close to death.[80] She made arrangements for her will and argued with her father about where she should be buried. Matilda preferred Bec Abbey, but Henry wanted her to be interred at Rouen Cathedral.[80] Matilda recovered, and Henry was overjoyed by the birth of his second grandson, possibly insisting on another round of oaths from his nobility.[80][nb 10]

From then on, relations became increasingly strained between Matilda and Henry. The couple suspected that they lacked genuine support in England for their claim to the throne, and proposed in 1135 that the King should hand over the royal castles in Normandy to Matilda and should insist that the Norman nobility immediately swear allegiance to her.[82] This would have given the couple a much more powerful position after Henry's death, but the King angrily refused, probably out of a concern that Geoffrey would try to seize power in Normandy while he was still alive.[83] A fresh rebellion broke out in southern Normandy, and Geoffrey and Matilda intervened militarily on behalf of the rebels.[50]

In the middle of this confrontation, Henry unexpectedly fell ill and died near Lyons-la-Forêt.[84] It is uncertain what, if anything, Henry said about the succession before his death.[85] Contemporary chronicler accounts were coloured by subsequent events. Sources favourable to Matilda suggested that Henry had reaffirmed his intent to grant all his lands to his daughter, while hostile chroniclers argued that Henry had renounced his former plans and had apologised for having forced the barons to swear an oath of allegiance to her.[85]

Road to war
When news began to spread of Henry I's death, Matilda and Geoffrey were in Anjou, supporting the rebels in their campaign against the royal army, which included a number of Matilda's supporters such as Robert of Gloucester.[50] Many of these barons had taken an oath to stay in Normandy until the late king was properly buried, which prevented them from returning to England.[86] Nonetheless, Geoffrey and Matilda took the opportunity to march into southern Normandy and seize a number of key castles around Argentan that had formed Matilda's disputed dowry.[87] They then stopped, unable to advance further, pillaging the countryside and facing increased resistance from the Norman nobility and a rebellion in Anjou itself.[88] Matilda was by now also pregnant with her third son, William; opinions vary among historians as to what extent this affected her military plans.[89][nb 11]

Meanwhile, news of Henry's death had reached Stephen of Blois, conveniently placed in Boulogne, and he left for England, accompanied by his military household. Robert of Gloucester had garrisoned the ports of Dover and Canterbury and some accounts suggest that they refused Stephen access when he first arrived.[90] Nonetheless Stephen reached the edge of London by 8 December and over the next week he began to seize power in England.[91] The crowds in London proclaimed Stephen the new monarch, believing that he would grant the city new rights and privileges in return, and his brother, Henry of Blois, the Bishop of Winchester, delivered the support of the Church to Stephen.[92] Stephen had sworn to support Matilda in 1127, but Henry convincingly argued that the late King had been wrong to insist that his court take the oath, and suggested that the King had changed his mind on his deathbed.[93][nb 12] Stephen's coronation was held a week later at Westminster Abbey on 26 December.[95]

Following the news that Stephen was gathering support in England, the Norman nobility had gathered at Le Neubourg to discuss declaring his elder brother Theobald king.[96] The Normans argued that the count, as the eldest grandson of William the Conqueror, had the most valid claim over the kingdom and the Duchy, and was certainly preferable to Matilda.[97] Their discussions were interrupted by the sudden news from England that Stephen's coronation was to occur the next day.[95] Theobald's support immediately ebbed away, as the barons were not prepared to support the division of England and Normandy by opposing Stephen.[98][nb 13]

Matilda gave birth to her third son William on 22 July 1136 at Argentan, and she then operated out of the border region for the next three years, establishing her household knights on estates around the area.[100] Matilda may have asked Ulger, the Bishop of Angers, to garner support for her claim with the Pope in Rome, but if she did, Ulger was unsuccessful.[101] Geoffrey invaded Normandy in early 1136 and, after a temporary truce, invaded again later the same year, raiding and burning estates rather than trying to hold the territory.[102] Stephen returned to the Duchy in 1137, where he met with Louis VI and Theobald to agree to an informal alliance against Geoffrey and Matilda, to counter the growing Angevin power in the region.[103] Stephen formed an army to retake Matilda's Argentan castles, but frictions between his Flemish mercenary forces and the local Norman barons resulted in a battle between the two-halves of his army.[104] The Norman forces then deserted the King, forcing Stephen to give up his campaign.[105] Stephen agreed to another truce with Geoffrey, promising to pay him 2,000 marks a year in exchange for peace along the Norman borders.[102]

In England, Stephen's reign started off well, with lavish gatherings of the royal court that saw the King give out grants of land and favours to his supporters.[106] Stephen received the support of Pope Innocent II, thanks in part to the testimony of Louis VI and Theobald.[107] Troubles rapidly began to emerge. Matilda's uncle, David I of Scotland, invaded the north of England on the news of Henry's death, taking Carlisle, Newcastle and other key strongholds.[94] Stephen rapidly marched north with an army and met David at Durham, where a temporary compromise was agreed.[108] South Wales rose in rebellion, and by 1137 Stephen was forced to abandon attempts to suppress the revolt.[109] Stephen put down two revolts in the south-west led by Baldwin de Redvers and Robert of Bampton; Baldwin was released after his capture and travelled to Normandy, where he became a vocal critic of the King.[110]

Revolt
Matilda's half-brother, Robert of Gloucester, was one of the most powerful Anglo-Norman barons, controlling estates in Normandy as well as the Earldom of Gloucester.[111] In 1138, he rebelled against Stephen, starting the descent into civil war in England.[112] Robert renounced his fealty to the King and declared his support for Matilda, which triggered a major regional rebellion in Kent and across the south-west of England, although he himself remained in Normandy.[113] Matilda had not been particularly active in asserting her claims to the throne since 1135 and in many ways it was Robert who took the initiative in declaring war in 1138.[114] In France, Geoffrey took advantage of the situation by re-invading Normandy. David of Scotland also invaded the north of England once again, announcing that he was supporting the claim of Matilda to the throne, pushing south into Yorkshire.[115][nb 14]

Stephen responded quickly to the revolts and invasions, paying most attention to England rather than to Normandy. His wife Matilda was sent to Kent with ships and resources from Boulogne, with the task of retaking the key port of Dover, under Robert's control.[111] A small number of Stephen's household knights were sent north to help the fight against the Scots, where David's forces were defeated later that year at the Battle of the Standard.[115] Despite this victory, however, David still occupied most of the north.[115] Stephen himself went west in an attempt to regain control of Gloucestershire, first striking north into the Welsh Marches, taking Hereford and Shrewsbury, before heading south to Bath.[111] The town of Bristol itself proved too strong for him, and Stephen contented himself with raiding and pillaging the surrounding area.[111] The rebels appear to have expected Robert to intervene with support, but he remained in Normandy throughout the year, trying to persuade the Empress Matilda to invade England herself.[116] Dover finally surrendered to the Queen's forces later in the year.[117]

By 1139, an invasion of England by Robert and Matilda appeared imminent. Geoffrey and Matilda had secured much of Normandy and, together with Robert, spent the beginning of the year mobilising forces for a cross-Channel expedition.[118] Matilda also appealed to the papacy at the start of the year; her representative, Bishop Ulger, put forward her legal claim to the English throne on the grounds of her hereditary right and the oaths sworn by the barons.[119] Arnulf of Lisieux led Stephen's case, arguing that because Matilda's mother had really been a nun, her claim to the throne was illegitimate.[120] The Pope declined to reverse his earlier support for Stephen, but from Matilda's perspective the case usefully established that Stephen's claim was disputed.[120]

Civil War
A colour coded map of England showing the political factions in 1140
Political map of Wales and southern England in 1140; areas under Matilda's control (blue); Stephen's (red); Welsh (grey)
Empress Matilda's invasion finally began at the end of the summer of 1139. Baldwin de Redvers crossed over from Normandy to Wareham in August in an initial attempt to capture a port to receive Matilda's invading army, but Stephen's forces forced him to retreat into the south-west.[121] The following month, the Empress was invited by her stepmother, Queen Adeliza, to land at Arundel instead, and on 30 September Robert of Gloucester and Matilda arrived in England with a force of 140 knights.[121][nb 15] Matilda stayed at Arundel Castle, while Robert marched north-west to Wallingford and Bristol, hoping to raise support for the rebellion and to link up with Miles of Gloucester, who took the opportunity to renounce his fealty to the King and declare for Matilda.[123]

Stephen responded by promptly moving south, besieging Arundel and trapping Matilda inside the castle.[124] Stephen then agreed to a truce proposed by his brother, Henry of Blois; the full details of the agreement are not known, but the results were that Matilda and her household of knights were released from the siege and escorted to the south-west of England, where they were reunited with Robert of Gloucester.[124] The reasons for Matilda's release remain unclear. Stephen may have thought it was in his own best interests to release the Empress and concentrate instead on attacking Robert, seeing Robert, rather than Matilda, as his main opponent at this point in the conflict.[124] Arundel Castle was also considered almost impregnable, and Stephen may have been worried that he risked tying down his army in the south whilst Robert roamed freely in the west.[125] Another theory is that Stephen released Matilda out of a sense of chivalry; Stephen had a generous, courteous personality and women were not normally expected to be targeted in Anglo-Norman warfare.[126][nb 16]

After staying for a period in Robert's stronghold of Bristol, Matilda established her court in nearby Gloucester, still safely in the south-west but far enough away for her to remain independent of her half-brother.[128] Although there had been only a few new defections to her cause, Matilda still controlled a compact block of territory stretching out from Gloucester and Bristol south into Wiltshire, west into the Welsh Marches and east through the Thames Valley as far as Oxford and Wallingford, threatening London.[129] Her influence extended down into Devon and Cornwall, and north through Herefordshire, but her authority in these areas remained limited.[130]

She faced a counterattack from Stephen, who started by attacking Wallingford Castle which controlled the Thames corridor; it was held by Brian Fitz Count and Stephen found it too well defended.[131] Stephen continued into Wiltshire to attack Trowbridge, taking the castles of South Cerney and Malmesbury en route.[132] In response, Miles marched east, attacking Stephen's rearguard forces at Wallingford and threatening an advance on London.[133] Stephen was forced to give up his western campaign, returning east to stabilise the situation and protect his capital.[134]

At the start of 1140, Nigel, the Bishop of Ely, joined Matilda's faction.[134] Hoping to seize East Anglia, he established his base of operations in the Isle of Ely, then surrounded by protective fenland.[134] Nigel faced a rapid response from Stephen, who made a surprise attack on the isle, forcing the Bishop to flee to Gloucester.[135] Robert of Gloucester's men retook some of the territory that Stephen had taken in his 1139 campaign.[136] In an effort to negotiate a truce, Henry of Blois held a peace conference at Bath, at which Matilda was represented by Robert.[137] The conference collapsed after Henry and the clergy insisted that they should set the terms of any peace deal, which Stephen's representatives found unacceptable.[136]

Battle of Lincoln
Matilda's fortunes changed dramatically for the better at the start of 1141.[138] Ranulf of Chester, a powerful northern magnate, had fallen out with the King over the winter and Stephen had placed his castle in Lincoln under siege. In response, Robert of Gloucester and Ranulf advanced on Stephen's position with a larger force, resulting in the Battle of Lincoln on 2 February 1141.[139] The King commanded the centre of his army, with Alan of Brittany on his right and William of Aumale on his left.[140] Robert and Ranulf's forces had a superiority in cavalry and Stephen dismounted many of his own knights to form a solid infantry block.[140][nb 17] After an initial success in which William's forces destroyed the Angevins' Welsh infantry, the battle went well for Matilda's forces.[142] Robert and Ranulf's cavalry encircled Stephen's centre, and the King found himself surrounded by the Angevin army.[142] After much fighting, Robert's soldiers finally overwhelmed Stephen and he was taken away from the field in custody.[143]

Matilda received Stephen in person at her court in Gloucester, before having him moved to Bristol Castle, traditionally used for holding high-status prisoners.[144] Matilda now began to take the necessary steps to have herself crowned queen in his place, which would require the agreement of the Church and her coronation at Westminster.[145] Stephen's brother Henry summoned a council at Winchester before Easter in his capacity as papal legate to consider the clergy's view. Matilda had made a private deal with Henry that he would deliver the support of the Church in exchange for being granted control over Church affairs.[146] Henry handed over the royal treasury to her, which proved to be rather depleted except for Stephen's crown, and he excommunicated many of her enemies who refused to switch sides.[147] Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury was unwilling to declare Matilda queen so rapidly, however, and a delegation of clergy and nobles, headed by Theobald, travelled to Bristol to see Stephen, who agreed that, given the situation, he was prepared to release his subjects from their oath of fealty to him.[146][148]

The clergy gathered again in Winchester after Easter and declared Matilda the "Lady of England and Normandy" as a precursor to her coronation.[148] Although Matilda's own followers attended the event, few other major nobles seem to have attended and the delegation from London procrastinated.[149] Stephen's wife, Queen Matilda, wrote to complain and demand her husband's release.[150] Nonetheless, Matilda then advanced to London to arrange her coronation in June, where her position became precarious.[151] Despite securing the support of Geoffrey de Mandeville, who controlled the Tower of London, forces loyal to Stephen and Queen Matilda remained close to the city and the citizens were fearful about welcoming the Empress.[152] On 24 June, shortly before the planned coronation, the city rose up against the Empress and Geoffrey de Mandeville; Matilda and her followers fled just in time, making a chaotic retreat back to Oxford.[153]

Meanwhile, Geoffrey of Anjou invaded Normandy again and, in the absence of Waleran of Beaumont, who was still fighting in England, Geoffrey took all the Duchy south of the River Seine and east of the Risle.[154] No help was forthcoming from Stephen's brother Theobald this time either, who appears to have been preoccupied with his own problems with France-the new French king, Louis VII, had rejected his father's regional alliance, improving relations with Anjou and taking a more bellicose line with Theobald, which would result in war the following year.[155] Geoffrey's success in Normandy and Stephen's weakness in England began to influence the loyalty of many Anglo-Norman barons, who feared losing their lands in England to Robert and the Empress, and their possessions in Normandy to Geoffrey.[156] Many started to leave Stephen's faction. His friend and advisor Waleran was one of those who decided to defect in mid-1141, crossing into Normandy to secure his ancestral possessions by allying himself with the Angevins, and bringing Worcestershire into the Empress's camp.[157] Waleran's twin brother, Robert of Leicester, effectively withdrew from fighting in the conflict at the same time. Other supporters of the Empress were restored in their former strongholds, such as Bishop Nigel of Ely, and still others received new earldoms in the west of England. The royal control over the minting of coins broke down, leading to coins being struck by local barons and bishops across the country.[158]

Rout of Winchester and the Siege of Oxford
Matilda's position was transformed by her defeat at the Rout of Winchester. Her alliance with Henry of Blois proved short-lived and they soon fell out over political patronage and ecclesiastical policy; the Bishop transferred his support back to Stephen's cause.[159] In response, in July Matilda and Robert of Gloucester besieged Henry of Blois in his episcopal castle at Winchester, using the royal castle in the city as the base for their operations.[160] Stephen's wife, Queen Matilda, had kept his cause alive in the south-east of England, and the Queen, backed by her lieutenant William of Ypres and reinforced with fresh troops from London, took the opportunity to advance on Winchester.[161] Their forces encircled Matilda's army.[162] Matilda decided to escape from the city with Fitz Count and Reginald of Cornwall, while the rest of her army delayed the royal forces.[163] In the subsequent battle the Empress's forces were defeated and Robert of Gloucester himself was taken prisoner during the retreat, although Matilda herself escaped, exhausted, to her fortress at Devizes.[164]

With both Stephen and Robert held prisoner, negotiations were held to try to come to agreement on a long-term peace settlement, but Queen Matilda was unwilling to offer any compromise to the Empress, and Robert refused to accept any offer to encourage him to change sides to Stephen.[165] Instead, in November the two sides simply exchanged the two leaders, Stephen returning to his queen, and Robert to the Empress in Oxford.[166] Henry held another church council, which reversed its previous decision and reaffirmed Stephen's legitimacy to rule, and a fresh coronation of Stephen and Matilda occurred at Christmas 1141.[165] Stephen travelled north to raise new forces and to successfully persuade Ranulf of Chester to change sides once again.[167] Stephen then spent the summer attacking some of the new Angevin castles built the previous year, including Cirencester, Bampton and Wareham.[168]

During the summer of 1142 Robert returned to Normandy to assist Geoffrey with operations against some of Stephen's remaining followers there, before returning in the autumn.[169] Matilda came under increased pressure from Stephen's forces and was surrounded at Oxford.[168] Oxford was a secure town, protected by walls and the River Isis, but Stephen led a sudden attack across the river, leading the charge and swimming part of the way.[170] Once on the other side, the King and his men stormed into the town, trapping Matilda in the castle.[170] Oxford Castle was a powerful fortress and, rather than storming it, Stephen decided to settle down for a long siege.[170] Just before Christmas, Matilda sneaked out of the castle with a handful of knights (probably via a postern gate), crossed the icy river on foot and made her escape past the royal army to safety at Wallingford, leaving the castle garrison free to surrender the next day.[171][nb 18]

Stalemate
In the aftermath of the retreat from Winchester, Matilda rebuilt her court at Devizes Castle, a former property of the Bishop of Salisbury that had been confiscated by Stephen.[173] She established her household knights on the surrounding estates, supported by Flemish mercenaries, ruling through the network of local sheriffs and other officials.[174] Many of those that had lost lands in the regions held by the King travelled west to take up patronage from Matilda.[175] Backed by the pragmatic Robert of Gloucester, Matilda was content to engage in a drawn-out struggle, and the war soon entered a stalemate.[176]

At first, the balance of power appeared to move slightly in Matilda's favour.[177] Robert of Gloucester besieged Stephen in 1143 at Wilton Castle, an assembly point for royal forces in Herefordshire.[178] Stephen attempted to break out and escape, resulting in the Battle of Wilton. Once again, the Angevin cavalry proved too strong, and for a moment it appeared that Stephen might be captured for a second time, before finally managing to escape.[179] Later in the year Geoffrey de Mandeville, the Earl of Essex, rose up in rebellion against Stephen in East Anglia.[180] Geoffrey based himself from the Isle of Ely and began a military campaign against Cambridge, with the intention of progressing south towards London.[181] Ranulf of Chester revolted once again in the summer of 1144.[182] Meanwhile, Geoffrey of Anjou finished securing his hold on southern Normandy, and in January 1144 he advanced into Rouen, the capital of the Duchy, concluding his campaign.[167] Louis VII recognised him as Duke of Normandy shortly after.[183]

Despite these successes, Matilda was unable to consolidate her position.[184] Miles of Gloucester, one of the most talented of her military commanders, had died while hunting over the previous Christmas.[185] Geoffrey de Mandeville's rebellion against Stephen in the east ended with his death in September 1144 during an attack on Burwell Castle.[186] As a result, Stephen made progress against Matilda's forces in the west in 1145, recapturing Faringdon Castle in Oxfordshire.[186] Matilda authorised Reginald, the Earl of Cornwall, to attempt fresh peace negotiations, but neither side was prepared to compromise.[187]

Conclusion of the war
The character of the conflict in England gradually began to shift; by the late 1140s, the major fighting in the war was over, giving way to an intractable stalemate, with only the occasional outbreak of fresh fighting.[188] Several of Matilda's key supporters died: in 1147 Robert of Gloucester died peacefully, and Brian Fitz Count gradually withdrew from public life, probably eventually joining a monastery; by 1151 he was dead.[189] Many of Matilda's other followers joined the Second Crusade when it was announced in 1145, leaving the region for several years.[188] Some of the Anglo-Norman barons made individual peace agreements with each other to secure their lands and war gains, and many were not keen to pursue any further conflict.[190]

Matilda's eldest son Henry slowly began to assume a leading role in the conflict.[191] He had remained in France when the Empress first left for England.[192] He crossed over to England in 1142, before returning to Anjou in 1144.[192] Geoffrey of Anjou expected Henry to become the King of England and began to involve him in the government of the family lands.[193] In 1147, Henry intervened in England with a small mercenary army but the expedition failed, not least because Henry lacked the funds to pay his men.[188] Henry asked his mother for money, but she refused, stating that she had none available.[194] In the end Stephen himself ended up paying off Henry's mercenaries, allowing him to return home safely; his reasons for doing so remain unclear.[195][nb 19]

Matilda decided to return to Normandy in 1148, partially due to her difficulties with the Church.[196] The Empress had occupied the strategically essential Devizes Castle in 1142, maintaining her court there, but legally it still belonged to Josceline de Bohon, the Bishop of Salisbury, and in late 1146 Pope Eugene III intervened to support his claims, threatening Matilda with excommunication if she did not return it.[196] Matilda first played for time, then left for Normandy in early 1148, leaving the castle to Henry, who then procrastinated over its return for many years.[197] Matilda re-established her court in Rouen, where she met with her sons and husband and probably made arrangements for her future life in Normandy, and for Henry's next expedition to England.[198] Matilda chose to live in the priory of Notre Dame du Pré, situated just south of Rouen, where she lived in personal quarters attached to the priory and in a nearby palace built by Henry.[199]

Matilda increasingly devoted her efforts to the administration of Normandy, rather than the war in England.[200] Geoffrey sent the Bishop of Thérouanne to Rome in 1148 to campaign for Henry's right to the English throne, and opinion within the English Church gradually shifted in Henry's favour.[201] Matilda and Geoffrey made peace with Louis VII, who in return supported Henry's rights to Normandy.[202] Geoffrey died unexpectedly in 1151, and Henry claimed the family lands.[203] Henry returned to England once again at the start of 1153 with a small army, winning the support of some of the major regional barons.[204] Neither side's army was keen to fight, however, and the Church brokered a truce; a permanent peace followed, under which Henry recognised Stephen as king, but became Stephen's adopted son and successor.[205] Meanwhile, Normandy faced considerable disorder and the threat of baronial revolt, which Matilda was unable to totally suppress.[206] Stephen died the next year, and Henry assumed the throne; his coronation used the grander of the two imperial crowns that Matilda had brought back from Germany in 1125.[207] Once Henry had been crowned, the troubles facing Matilda in Normandy died away.[206]

Later life
Matilda spent the rest of her life in Normandy, often acting as Henry's representative and presiding over the government of the Duchy.[208] Early on, Matilda and her son issued charters in England and Normandy in their joint names, dealing with the various land claims that had arisen during the wars.[208] Particularly in the initial years of his reign, the King drew on her for advice on policy matters.[209] Matilda was involved in attempts to mediate between Henry and his Chancellor Thomas Becket when the two men fell out in the 1160s.[13] Matilda had originally cautioned against the appointment, but when the Prior of Mont St Jacques asked her for a private interview on Becket's behalf to seek her views, she provided a moderate perspective on the problem.[13] Matilda explained that she disagreed with Henry's attempts to codify English customs, which Becket was opposed to, but also condemned poor administration in the English Church and Becket's own headstrong behaviour.[13]

Matilda helped to deal with several diplomatic crises. The first of these involved the Hand of St James, the relic which Matilda had brought back with her from Germany many years before.[210] Frederick I, the Holy Roman Emperor, considered the hand to be part of the imperial regalia and requested that Henry return it to Germany.[211] Matilda and Henry were equally insistent that it should remain at Reading Abbey, where it had become a popular attraction for visiting pilgrims.[211] Frederick was bought off with an alternative set of expensive gifts from England, including a huge, luxurious tent, probably chosen by Matilda, which Frederick used for court events in Italy.[212] She was also approached by Louis VII of France, in 1164, and helped to defuse a growing diplomatic row over the handling of Crusading funds.[13]

In her old age Matilda paid increasing attention to Church affairs and her personal faith, although she remained involved in governing Normandy throughout her life.[213] Matilda appears to have had particular fondness for her youngest son William.[214] She opposed Henry's proposal in 1155 to invade Ireland and give the lands to William, however, possibly on the grounds that the project was impractical, and instead William received large grants of land in England.[13] Matilda was more easy-going in her later life than in her youth, but the chronicler of Mont St Jacques, who met her during this period, still felt that she appeared to be "of the stock of tyrants".[215]

Death
Matilda died on 10 September 1167, and her remaining wealth was given to the Church.[216][nb 20] She was buried under the high altar at the abbey of Bec-Hellouin in a service led by Rotrou, the Archbishop of Rouen.[217] Her tomb's epitaph included the lines "Great by birth, greater by marriage, greatest in her offspring: here lies Matilda, the daughter, wife, and mother of Henry", which became a famous phrase among her contemporaries.[218][nb 21] This tomb was damaged in a fire in 1263 and later restored in 1282, before finally being destroyed by an English army in 1421.[219] In 1684 the Congregation of St. Maur identified some of her remaining bones and reburied them at Bec-Hellouin in a new coffin.[219] Her remains were lost again after the destruction of Bec-Hellouin's church by Napoleon, but were found once more in 1846 and this time reburied at Rouen Cathedral, where they remain.[219]

Matilda as ruler
In the Holy Roman Empire, the young Matilda's court included knights, chaplains and ladies-in-waiting, although, unlike some queens of the period, she did not have her own personal chancellor to run her household, instead using the imperial chancellor.[24] When acting as regent in Italy, she found the local rulers were prepared to accept a female ruler.[220] Her Italian administration included the Italian chancellor, backed by experienced administrators.[220] She was not called upon to make any major decisions, instead dealing with smaller matters and acting as the symbolic representative of her absent husband, meeting with and helping to negotiate with magnates and clergy.[221]

On her return from Germany to Normandy and Anjou, she styled herself as empress and the daughter of King Henry.[222] During the civil war for England, her status was uncertain. The Anglo-Saxon queens of England had exercised considerable formal power, but this tradition had diminished under the Normans: at most their queens ruled temporarily as regents on their husbands' behalf when they were away travelling, rather than in their own right.[223] Initially between 1139 and 1141 Matilda referred to herself as acting as a feme sole, "a woman acting alone", highlighting her autonomy and independence from her husband Geoffrey.[224] She had an imperial great seal created, which was round like the seal of a king - queens used an oval seal - but which showed Matilda enthroned as an empress and titled as the Queen of the Romans.[225] The seal did not show her on horseback, however, as a male ruler would have been depicted.[225] Since she was never crowned at Westminster, during the rest of the war she appears to have used her title of Lady of the English, rather than that of the Queen of England, although some contemporaries referred to her by the royal title.[226]

Matilda presented herself as continuing the English tradition of centralised royal government, and attempted to maintain a government in England parallel to Stephen's, including a royal household and a chancellor.[227] Matilda gathered revenues from the royal estates in the counties under her control, particularly in her core territories where the sheriffs were loyal to her cause.[228] She appointed earls to rival those created by Stephen.[229] She was unable to operate a system of royal law courts, however, and her administrative resources were extremely limited, although some of her clerks went on to become bishops in Normandy.[230] Matilda issued two types of coins in her name during her time in England, which were used in the west of England and Wales.[231] The first were initially minted in Oxford during her stay there, and the design was then adopted by her mints at Bristol, Cardiff and Wareham after her victory at the Battle of Lincoln.[231] A second design was minted at Bristol and Cardiff during the 1140s.[231]

On returning to Normandy for the last time in 1148, Matilda ceased to use the title Lady of the English, simply styling herself as empress again; she never adopted the title of Countess of Anjou.[232] Matilda's household became smaller, and often merged with Henry's own court when the two were co-located in Rouen.[233] She continued to play a special role in the government of the area around Argentan, where she held feudal rights from the grants made at the time of her second marriage.[234]

Relations with the Church
It is unclear how strong Matilda's personal piety was, although contemporaries praised her lifelong preference to be buried at the monastic site of Bec rather than the grander but more worldly Rouen, and believed her to have substantial, underlying religious beliefs.[235] Like other members of the Anglo-Norman nobility, she bestowed considerable patronage on the Church.[236] Early on in her life, she preferred the well-established Benedictine monastery of Cluny alongside some of the newer Augustinian orders, such as the Victorines and Premonstratensians.[237] As part of this patronage, she re-founded the abbey of Notre-Dame-du-Vœu near Cherbourg.[238]

As time went by, Matilda directed more of her attention to the Cistercian order. This order was very fashionable in England and Normandy during the period, and was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, a figure of particular importance to Matilda.[239] She had close links to the Cistercian Mortemer Abbey in Normandy, and drew on the house for a supply of monks when she supported the foundation of nearby La Valasse.[240] She encouraged the Cistercians to build at Mortemer on a grand scale, with guest houses to accommodate a range of visitors of all ranks, and may have played a part in selecting the paintings for the monastic chapels.[241]

Legacy
Historiography
Contemporary chroniclers in England, France, Germany and Italy documented many aspects of Matilda's life, although the only biography of her, apparently written by Arnulf of Lisieux, has been lost.[242] The chroniclers took a range of perspectives on her.[242] In Germany, the chroniclers praised Matilda extensively and her reputation as the "good Matilda" remained positive.[13] During the years of the Anarchy, works such as the Gesta Stephani took a much more negative tone, praising Stephen and condemning Matilda.[243] Once Henry II assumed the throne, the tone of the chroniclers towards Matilda became more positive.[244] Legends spread in the years after Matilda's death, including the suggestion that her first husband, Henry, had not died but had in fact secretly become a hermit - making Matilda's second marriage illegitimate - and a tale that Matilda had an affair with Stephen, resulting in the conception of Henry II.[245]

Tudor scholars were interested in Matilda's right of succession.[246] According to 16th century standards, Matilda had a clear right to the English throne, and academics therefore struggled to explain why Matilda had acquiesced to her son Henry's kingship at the end of the war, rather than ruling directly herself.[247] By the 18th century, historians such as David Hume had a much better understanding of the irregular nature of 12th century law and custom and this question became less relevant.[248] By the 19th century, the archival sources on Matilda's life, including charters, foundation histories, and letters, were being uncovered and analysed.[249] Historians Kate Norgate, Sir James Ramsay and J. H. Round used these to produce new, richer accounts of Matilda and the civil war; Ramsay's account, using the Gesta Stephani, was not complimentary, while Norgate, drawing on French sources, was more neutral in tone.[250] The German academic Oskar Rössler's 1897 biography drew heavily on German charters, not extensively used by Anglophone historians.[251]

Matilda has attracted relatively little attention from modern English academics, being treated as a marginal figure in comparison to other contemporaries, particularly her rival Stephen, in contrast to the work carried out by German scholars on her time in the Empire.[252] Popular, but not always accurate, biographies were written by the Earl of Onslow in 1939 and Nesta Pain in 1978, but the only major academic biography in English remains Marjorie Chibnall's 1991 work.[253] Interpretations of Matilda's character have shifted over time, but there is, as Chibnall describes, a "general agreement that she was either proud or at least keenly conscious of the high status of an empress".[254] Like both Henry I and Henry II, Matilda had a certain autocratic grandeur, which was combined with a firm moral belief in her cause; ultimately however she was limited by the political conventions of the 12th century.[255] The treatment of Matilda by modern historians has been challenged by feminist scholars, including Fiona Tolhurst, who believe some traditional assumptions about her role and personality show gender bias.[256] In this interpretation, Matilda has been unfairly criticised for showing qualities that have been considered praiseworthy when seen in her male contemporaries.[257]